Bubblegum Crisis: One Degree of Separation
by Purple Knight Saber
Summary: They never have worn hardsuits, but they wage their own daily battles all the same. Michiko. Xania. Emi. Three short tales of the girls who were each privileged to call themselves a friend of Yumeko Asagiri.
1. The Day Before: Michiko

Back when I was still figuring out what to do for "Half Moon," I had this idea in mind of a story for Xania that would run concurrent with it. It stayed in the back of my mind for a long time, but along the way I decided I wanted to do something for Michiko and Emi as well. I knew that doing Xania's story on its own would end up being too short, so I figured I'd use all three ideas and put them together in one story. And so, here you have it. "One Degree of Separation." Written between July and October 2009.

For Michiko's, you'll want to have read Next Gen first. For Xania's, FTA; Half Moon is also helpful but not required. For Emi's, reading Half Moon first is a MUST.

* * *

"Bubblegum Crisis – One Degree of Separation"

Written by Amanda Stair

* * *

"**The Day Before – Michiko"**

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…

It's the first sound I hear in the morning. Not the chirping of birds that I loved hearing back in Shikoku as a small child. Not the sound of a light summer breeze coming through my window and making the curtains flutter. No, the first thing I always hear is a harsh sound, artificial. But it's all I can do. If I left the window open here the first thing to greet me instead would be the sound of rush-hour traffic and the smell of smog.

No, I think I prefer my alarm, thank you.

BEEP…BEEP…

I groaned and rolled onto my back, throwing my arm over my eyes while my other hand groped for the off button on my alarm clock. Was it already 6:30? Geez. It felt like I had just fallen asleep, and in a way I just had. I'd stayed up till midnight the night before, frustrating myself with my English homework and the million different verb tenses that I felt like I had to master. Dad tried his best to help me out, but it seemed like even he had trouble at times. Not that I didn't appreciate his help; any sort of life raft to cling to in the middle of the ocean that was my English homework was welcome. I had no idea why it was so difficult for me. Algebra came easy to me, and chemistry wasn't that easy but I always managed to get good grades on the tests in there. PE wasn't my forte but at least I could hold my own during baseball matches and the two-kilometer runs. But English…why was it so hard for me?! Was it because I hadn't been that exposed to it at a younger age compared to a certain friend of mine, who could switch from Japanese to English in an instant and talk like she'd been fluent her whole life? I knew younger kids could absorb languages easier, but…

BEEP…BEEP…BEE—

"Enooough!" I groaned, slapping the alarm clock, making it go silent. I must've hit the snooze button by mistake before. Drat. And now it was 6:40. Still time for breakfast and a shower and a last-minute check on the previous night's homework, but I definitely couldn't lounge around much longer if I wanted to get all that done. I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and stumbled half-asleep to the bathroom, stripping off my pajamas. I shrieked when the water in the shower came out cold, but after a little adjustment it was at just the right temperature to wake me up and not freeze me at the same time. I stuck my head under the water, feeling my hair stick to the back of my neck and my back as it got saturated. Aah, this was nice. I'd gone two days without a shower, definitely overdue, so this was the best feeling in the world. And I would've spent an hour in there if it meant I'd still make it on time to school, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. After washing my body and my hair and shaving the necessary parts, I stepped out of the shower and dried myself off, rubbing my favorite cherry-scented lotion into my arms before getting dressed.

"Hmm…are they getting bigger?" I wondered aloud, turning on the mirror defogger to get a better look at myself in the mirror. I'd just put on my bra, but it didn't seem to fit quite right. The cups seemed tighter than usual. A look in the mirror confirmed my suspicions; you could say my cup runneth over, both of them. A growth spurt, at this age? I shrugged and pulled on my shirt; guess I would have to go shopping for a new bra this weekend.

I blow-dried my hair, afterwards spraying it with hair spray and gel to make sure the style would hold as I pulled it back into my usual looped ponytail. Another look in the mirror and a few bobby pins later, it was good and secure.

"Oh, Michiko, good morning," my mom said cheerfully, busy whipping up what looked like a ham-and-cheese omelet. "Did you finish that assignment?"

"Yeah," I replied, pouring myself a glass of milk. "I hope I did okay, 'cause I heard we're supposed to be getting a big assignment tomorrow."

"Any idea what it's going to entail?"

"No. But Yucchan can probably help me with it," I said with a small giggle.

"Do I need to start paying her?" she joked. "How's her therapy going, by the way? I just know that she got her brace off last month."

"I haven't been able to go to many of her sessions. But ever since she got it off she's been much happier. I can't really blame her. I don't think I'd want to walk around with that thing either."

"I'm happy for her," she said, putting the omelet onto a plate, which I took to the kitchen table and immediately started cutting into. "What a horrible thing to happen, to be shot by one of those blasted Knight Sabers…"

I had to force myself to chew slowly, so as not to gag on my omelet. For some reason, Mom couldn't stand the Knight Sabers. She'd mentioned something about them murdering a Genom executive some years back, and seemed to latch right away onto the idea that they'd somehow sabotaged the summit at the convention center, but I knew better than that. If they fought Boomers, why do something like that? She would say that them not having any Boomers to fight would put them out of business, and so they had to do something to keep the world leaders from enacting some sort of ban on them. It kinda made sense, but they'd gotten by during the nineteen-year lull in Boomer attacks somehow, right? And the chatter I'd seen on the Net had said that their murder of the aforementioned Genom executive was entirely justified. Anything on the Net, of course, had to be taken with a grain of salt, but the theories on there seemed more believable than the reasons Mom would use to convince herself that the Knight Sabers were bad.

And to think that my best friend was actually part of that group that Mom hated so much… That she would put her life on the line to protect people like my mom, who hated her… But Mom didn't hate Yumeko herself. She just hated the Knight Sabers. But of course I couldn't tell her that Yumeko was the purple one, as much as I'd have loved to just to get her to shut up. Oh, to see the look on her face if I told her. But no. I'd sworn myself to secrecy. She'd told me her secret in utmost confidence, and I'd seen how much it pained her to answer my questions truthfully, to relate her story of what really happened at the summit on the night of March sixteenth, even if she couldn't remember it blow-by-blow.

She'd died twice on the operating table. She'd have been better off getting a cybernetic leg than trying to make do with her mangled one. Or at least that's what I'd been told. But thankfully she and Priss had refused to replace her leg. I knew how they both felt about cybernetics, even ones deemed medically necessary. Even before I knew her secret Yumeko hadn't liked Boomers. Getting a cybernetic leg, in her opinion, would've made her one of them. I could understand her line of thinking, but I also knew there was a bigger reason for her refusing: the Olympics. She would be ineligible for them if she'd replaced her leg. She wasn't about to sacrifice her Olympic dream just for the sake of convenience. I had to admire her for that, even though she went through so much pain to make herself walk again, to be rid of that brace she hated so much.

She could walk now, to be sure. But would she make it to the Olympics next year? I had my doubts. But that didn't mean I wasn't going to encourage her every step of the way. I had to. If she believed, I had to, too.

"She's still planning on getting to the Olympics," I declared. "She's not gonna let that stop her."

"It's a long shot," she sighed. "And she knows it."

"I'm sure she does. But if that's the main thing motivating her to get better, then who am I to say there's no way she can make it?"

Mom smiled at me as she flipped another omelet in the pan. "You're a good friend to her, Michiko. Why don't you go with her to her therapy session today?"

"But she still has half-days at school. I can't cut out."

"I didn't say cut out. And didn't she start school again full-time once she got it off?" I mentally slapped myself upside the head. Of course she had. How could I forget something that obvious? Maybe it was because we didn't have any afternoon classes together. "Go after school then, as long as you don't have too much homework to do. She's there till about seven or so, right?"

"Yeah."

"So even if you can only be there for the last few hours of her session, I'm sure she'd appreciate it."

I nodded. I hadn't been to one of her sessions in several weeks. I just had to see for myself what she could do now. Maybe Linna was having her do other moves now, since the brace was no longer there to get in the way.

"Did Dad have to go in early today?" I asked. I couldn't hear the shower adjacent to Mom and Dad's bedroom going, nor could I hear him humming as he usually did as he shaved.

"Yes," she sighed. "Some other problem at work that they just couldn't solve without him being physically present. I swear, the people he works for, they just can't think for themselves at all. They'd rather collect paychecks while sitting on their butts instead of earning it by doing of the real work your father does. That's not how the real world works. Oh, I can't wait until the layoffs start."

"Layoffs?" I repeated. "Are there problems at his job?"

"Oh, they're going to be downsizing a little bit. Don't worry about your dad though. He's far too important to be let go, but those other guys I just mentioned…" She let a smirk play across her face as she dished up her omelet and sat at the table with me. "Reality's about to give them a hard slap in the face. If they think they can make money just by being a chair-warmer and delegating the hard work to people like your father, they're sorely wrong. I don't want you to be like that, alright, Michiko? I don't want you to think you can just get a paycheck by being an OL and answering phones all day. If you want to make real money, you have to do real hard work. You have to be prepared to stay late, to make sacrifices in your social life…"

"I don't have much of a social life…" I interjected, but she continued on, ignoring me.

"…And you can't expect to be making the big bucks right off the bat either. Even after you get out of college, you might need to rent one of those one-room apartments for a while. But it's ok. It takes time, but as you work your way up…"

I sat and drank the rest of my milk, only listening with one ear as Mom went on her rant. I knew that she wanted the best for me, that she didn't want me ending up as some deadbeat or living in one of the housing projects in district 3. But really, did I have to hear this same rant two, maybe three times a week? I could practically say it word for word, as each rant was practically verbatim of the previous one. Go to college, get an excellent job, don't be one of those women who sacrifices her job to dote on her husband, when or if she finds one.

Was this a case of 'Do as I say, not as I do,' then? It was what she did after she got married and had me, after all. I didn't quite understand. Was she regretting quitting the work force? Or did she just want me to have opportunities she missed out on?

I didn't have the guts to ask. I swallowed the last of my omelet and said, "That was good. Thanks, Mom."

"I'll get the dishes," she said, taking my plate and glass from me. "Go check on your homework. It's about time for you to go."

"Okay."

I went to my room, where my homework was spread out over my desk. I organized it by subject, then gave each of the assignments a quick glance to make sure I hadn't made any careless mistakes. Satisfied, I put them in my backpack, followed by the textbooks I would need for the day. I wasn't worried about most of the assignments; as usual, it was the English one I was worried about. Maybe I'd have Yumeko take a look at it before English class if there was time. And if I hadn't made too many dumb mistakes, maybe she could help me with some of those before I had to turn it in…

I shook my head. I was getting distracted. I had to get going.

"Bye, Mom!" I called as I headed out the door. "See you tonight!"

"See you!"

* * *

The bus stop was a short walk away, and when I arrived several other people were there waiting, not all of them students. Some were on their way to work, holding heavy-looking briefcases in their hands, still looking half-asleep. I couldn't blame them. Even after my shower my body still wanted to go back to bed. But school beckoned. But on the bright side, it was my last year of high school. Only seven more months of this and then I was free…until college anyway. And Mom was adamant that I go. Of course I was planning on going. I was still looking around at the different schools in the city, then I would have to take the entrance exams for those, but studying for those on top of doing my regular homework… My head spun at the thought. I'd have no life. Not that I did anyway.

When the bus arrived I stepped on, inserted my bus pass, and was pushed to the back as more people suddenly crammed on, leaving me little room to breathe, let alone turn around or adjust my position. And so in that position I stayed, occasionally having my ribs crushed as more people got on, for the next half-hour until the bus arrived at my stop, two blocks from Kihi. I was able to get off the bus, my ribs and lungs thanking me for doing it in quick fashion, and after a moment to take time to learn to breathe deeply again, I took off in a quick stride, the occasional sunbeam able to break through between the tall buildings surrounding me. At least they appeared at all; it got downright depressing when the sky was overcast. It would make the buildings seem like huge shadowy figures, glaring down at you. Although some would say Genom Tower always did that anyway, rain or shine. I had to admit, they had a point. That thing was just creepy.

Cars were starting to fill the student parking lot when I arrived, and I wasn't surprised to see Yumeko's assigned spot still empty. I was actually starting to place bets in my head as to whether or not she would actually show up today. She was famous for ditching, although she hadn't seemed to do too much of that lately. Not to mention she hadn't been suspended at all. THAT was a surprise, though she did come close when she had had a blackout in the cafeteria several months ago. I'd had to convince Principal Vermotti that it was unfair to suspend her based on something she obviously had no control over. Still, I was afraid for the next time she would get set off. Would she kill someone? Get expelled? Maybe it'd be Boh she'd black out on next. That would've been almost funny. He creeped me out sometimes.

Speaking of Boh, he was one of the few kids who had arrived at literature class before me. He was sitting in his usual desk, reading a large book that I doubted I would have had the patience to sit and read…until I read the title of the book.

"_I Am A Cat_?" I quoted aloud. "That's a Soseki novel."

"Yes," he mumbled, giving a nod, not looking up from his book.

"I think I read that once. What part are you at?"

"When the cat is dancing around the kitchen with the treat stuck in its mouth," he replied, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Oh, that part." I laughed nervously. "I felt so sorry for him. And then that part at the end…"

"Yes, but he had it coming to him."

"That's horrible. And how do you know what happens anyway?"

"This is my third time through the book."

I almost gagged in my mouth. Third time through a book of that size? Was he a masochist? "Lemme guess, the next one you're gonna tackle is _The Tale of Genji_, right? Or _War and Peace_? Or maybe even _The Canterbury Tales_ for English class?"

"Genji is quite the character," he said, turning the page. "Not unlike a guy you used to be close with."

I grimaced. I knew whom he was referring to. "I know. I couldn't stand reading the part where he forced himself on Murasaki, then wondered the next day why she looked so nervous around him. Couldn't stand it."

"Because he basically raped her, or because she was twelve?"

"Both. It's disgusting."

"It was normal at the time to take young wives. Isn't it like Romeo and Juliet?"

I could tell he was being facetious about it, and I didn't like it at all. "They weren't much older, but at least they were in love."

"Weren't you in love with Masahiro?"

"…Yes. But he didn't feel the same for me." I shook my head. "Why am I talking with you about this?"

"You're the one who brought the subject up."

I let out a harumph and went to sit down in my seat, taking out my literature books. He irritated me so much sometimes! And to bring up those memories of Masahiro… It wasn't something I didn't like to remember. I had been stupid, thinking he loved me. Of course he didn't. Why would a thug like him possibly fall for a frail girl like me? In the end, all he had wanted was sex. And he had succeeded, pressuring me into giving him my virginity in his truck on that rainy afternoon, only to ditch me almost immediately afterwards. I had learned I wasn't the first girl he deceived, and I ended up not being the last either. It was a lesson I had learned the hard way, not to trust or give your love too freely, or your heart will be crushed.

But at least I was able to spare my friend from being deceived as well…

My ears perked up when I heard the sound of stilted running coming down the hallway. I smiled; I knew that sound. It was one I had heard almost every day for the last month.

"Yumeko!" I exclaimed when sure enough, she came around the corner and into the room. A mop of brunette hair set on top of a face with expressive, happy red eyes. Her left leg swayed slightly underneath her, but held up.

"Yo, Michiko!" she called. "How goes it?"

"Ok, except for him." I jabbed my thumb in Boh's direction.

"Ignore him. He's so depressing." She gave me a smile, which immediately cheered me up.

"She started it," Boh stated flatly, inserting a bookmark before closing his book and putting it away. "We were having an honest conversation about fictional romances and how they compare to real-life ones. A bit too honest for her, perhaps."

"Who said romance is dead? It can't be if it was never alive," she said, sticking her tongue out before sitting down at her own desk.

"It's ok, Yumeko," I groaned in a pained voice. "Just let it go. Class is gonna start in a few minutes anyway."

She looked at me, and seeing my expression, just nodded. "Ok…"

"It was stupid of me to say anything, anyway." I laid my head down on the desk, groaning again. She had tried to understand, but it was hard to explain to someone who not only had never fallen in love, but who just plain hated all men outright. "Better to have loved and lost," and all that? It wasn't lost though. It wasn't even real, not from his end. And that was what pained me the most. And even over a year later, it still pained me to think about. But it was a mistake I wouldn't let happen again. I knew better now, even if it came at a cost. And Yumeko did get back at him, in her own way, I guess.

"Time to start, everybody!" Mr. Nami bellowed, strolling into class. "Settle down, settle down. Time for attendance. Asada!"

"Here."

"Asagiri!"

"Here," Yumeko mumbled.

"There's a shock," he mumbled right back, eliciting chuckles from everyone. "Capri!"

* * *

I had been surprised about Boh reading a Soseki novel because in literature class, we had been reading another Soseki novel, _Kokoro_. I would have preferred _Botchan_, but c'est la vie, right? Anyway, after that class Yumeko and I headed over to our trigonometry class, where she tried not to fall asleep listening to another of Mrs. Sasaki's lectures while I diligently took notes. That was nothing new; I imagined she probably took the opportunity in English class to catch up on sleep every day. With her being fluent and all, she wouldn't have missed a thing. A wonder she didn't ditch that class. Or maybe it was because it was so easy for her that she may as well stick around. I don't know.

I got a surprise in my English class. The big assignment that I'd thought would be assigned tomorrow… It was being assigned today instead. I went cross-eyed at the thought. For Yumeko it wouldn't have been difficult at all, but for me…well, you may as well have asked me to translate the Bible. It loomed that large for me. Normal speech was hard enough, but for this assignment the teacher was giving us song lyrics. Lyrics?! Wasn't that playing dirty? People could have all sorts of fun with lyrics, wording things different just so they'd fall into the A-A-B-B pattern of rhyming. And just to mix it up, he gave everyone an English song to translate into Japanese, and a Japanese song to translate into English. Thankfully he didn't ask for us to make our translations rhyme, or I really might have been tempted to rip out my ponytail in frustration. At least he had that much mercy.

I looked at the two sets of lyrics he had handed me. Everyone had gotten assigned different songs, so there was no way to cheat off somebody else. "_Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)_," I read aloud, looking at the English song. "What's that?" I looked at the Japanese song. _Yume Miru Shoujo ja Irarenai_. That one didn't seem familiar to me either, at least judging from the song name. I made a mental note to look up the songs on my computer when I got home, but before I could look over the lyrics and start running them through my mental dictionary, the teacher got us started on something else.

Fourth period was chemistry, where we each got assigned a chemical to do a ten-page report on. My eyes were practically spinning in my head. Only through fourth period and I already was in homework up to my ears. Just the English homework alone was going to keep me up late, and now a report on vanadium?! My only consolation was that we had a week to do the report, so at least I could put it off for now…

After fourth period was lunchtime. I took out my lunchbag and unpacked my rice balls and bowl of udon soup, while Yumeko stood in line and bought a sandwich of questionable quality from the lunch counter.

"You sure that's fresh?" I queried, wrinkling my nose as she took a bite.

"No," she replied. "But it tastes ok, at least."

"What songs did you get to translate for English class?" We didn't share English class – she had that class right after I did – so I had no idea.

"The English one is _My Friend of Misery_. I know that one, so that's easy. The Japanese one is _Pajama Jama Da_. Pfft."

I immediately went through the dictionary in my head. "Misery…z_etsuboo_?" I wondered aloud.

"Close. _Muzan_." The word I'd chosen in Japanese was the one for 'despair.'

"And 'my friend' is _watashi no tomodachi_. Or I guess you could shorten it to just _tomodachi_. So…the song is called _Muzan no Tomodachi_? What kind of song is that?"

"Or _Watashi no Muzan no Tomodachi_, I guess." She smirked and took a bite of her sandwich. "And I think the other one is an anime song, but I'll have to look it up. I don't know it. What'd you get?" I showed her. "Heh. I know that English one, but it'll give you fits."

"I'll pay you to translate it for me!" I pleaded, half-serious.

"I could…but then the teacher'll wonder why it's done so well," she joked.

"You're right." I slurped up some of my noodles.

"You'll be ok. You should know most of the words on sight. It's just a matter of putting them together."

"Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of. You could say I've got Wernicke's aphasia when it comes to English."

For once, Yumeko looked like she had no idea what I was talking about. "Huh?"

"Fluently nonsensical."

She laughed. "Oh c'mon, I don't think you're THAT bad. You at least know what you're trying to say. You'll get it."

"You think so?"

"Sure! I bet you'll still do better than most of the other kids in your class. You at least make an effort."

"Heh. Thanks, Yucchan."

She smiled and finished off her sandwich. She had faith in me. And that was enough. Tonight, for sure, I would try to do that English song and make it sound like it made sense. But then again, she had ripped on the teacher himself for speaking in bad English sometimes, so how would he even know if it was right or not?

I laughed at the thought.

* * * * *

It was a pity that I didn't share any classes with Yumeko after lunchtime, because even when I couldn't talk with her during class, it seemed to make the time go by faster. As a result, the rest of the day tended to drag on. I went through the motions in my art class, and music class went alright. In gym class today though, we were having our weekly two-kilometer run. At the starting line, the other girls I was racing against did their pre-race warm-ups, and I did the same. I wondered how I would do today.

When the teacher fired his pistol into the air, most of the girls took off at full speed, while I started out at a moderate pace, along with several other girls who'd apparently had the same idea as me. I had learned the hard way that if I tried to start out fast in a race, I would only wear out faster, so I tried to make an effort to just keep one pace the whole way. Along with that, I had to breathe properly. In the nose, out the mouth…in the nose, out the mouth. It was hard to remember sometimes if you were caught up in winning the race, but I didn't want to win. I just wanted to finish without feeling like my lungs were on fire.

In the end, my lungs were burning, but I wasn't as bad off as some of the other girls who'd finished ahead of me, looking like they were about to puke right there on the grass. I didn't win, but it looked like I was in the top twenty, at least, which was enough for me.

"Ishiodori!" the teacher snapped at me. "You gotta try harder! You can't just go about this at a leisurely pace!"

"What's wrong?" I asked. "My time wasn't that bad, was it?"

"8:34," he said.

"That's good. And I was in the top twenty."

"I know you can do better. Do what you do during the sprints."

"But that's short-distance running. That's different."

"Don't argue with me, alright? I just wanna see you do better next time."

I made a face and shrugged, sitting down on the grass while the rest of the girls finished the race and it was the boys' turn to run. I needed the bursts during sprints; that was the whole point. But if I was running for a longer period of time, like I'd just done, there was no point at all if you were gonna start lagging once the energy from the first burst ran out. He was a gym teacher; shouldn't he know about those things? Sure, I could go along with what he said and go ahead and start out strong next time, but then I would end up like those other girls, retching in the grass after the race. And what if my time was worse? He would probably yell at me to try harder anyway. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and mulled as the boys started their race.

After gym class, school was over for the day, but as I planned to help out Yumeko at her therapy session, I figured it would be a waste of time to take a shower, so I just changed back into my regular clothes and headed out. Home was only a couple blocks from the gym Yumeko was at, so I headed home first, once again caught in the crush of humanity on the bus and once again having to learn to breathe again once I got off. After dropping off my backpack, I walked those couple blocks down to the Beehive.

When I arrived, one of the other instructors was leading a large group of students in a yoga lesson, while off to the side, I saw Linna instructing Yumeko on an exercise bike.

"On the bike today?" I asked, walking up to them.

"Oh! Micchan!" Yumeko exclaimed.

"Hey, you stopped," Linna chided, wagging her finger. "Keep pedaling until I tell you to stop."

"But this is boring."

"I know it's boring, but just five more minutes."

"Okay, okay."

Linna walked away, looking sure that I could keep an eye on Yumeko while she went into the main office to make a phone call. I turned and looked at my friend, who pedaled away furiously, as if the faster she pedaled, the faster time would go by.

"Don't wear yourself out doing that," I said. "I'm sure she has other things in store for you after this."

"Of course she does," she said, panting. I could see the muscles bulging underneath her leg sleeve as she pedaled. "And I say, bring it on. I can take it. It's probably more running anyway."

"Can you handle running?"

"Sure!" She suddenly winced and stopped, putting a hand to her thigh.

I took a step closer. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She rubbed her thigh. "Just got a spasm all of a sudden."

"You gotta watch out for that," I said with a sigh. "Did she tell you to go at high speed?"

"No. But you know me." She flashed me a grin, which only made me sigh again. Yes, I did know her, which was why I had asked. She had a tendency to push herself too far sometimes.

"On the bright side, at least you CAN ride the bike. When you still had your brace I don't think you could."

"Nope," she concurred, starting up again, this time slowly.

"What about your gymnastics workouts? Can you do those yet?"

"Haven't tried. But I will soon. Gotta get going on that again if I wanna be able to try out."

"For the Olympics," I finished.

"No, for the circus," she quipped, laughing. "Of course the Olympics!"

"Okay, you can stop," Linna said, reappearing with a bottle of water in her hand. She took a long sip as Yumeko stepped off the bike and wiped her bangs from her eyes. "Let's head outside now."

"What did I tell ya?" Yumeko remarked as all three of us headed out the door and outside. She'd been right.

Linna instructed her to alternate her running. Speed-walking for the first lap, a jog for the first half of the second one, as full a run as she could manage for the last half, then a jog for the full third lap, then a full run for the fourth and final lap. Yumeko just nodded, while I stood and looked at them both, slack-jawed. Could she really handle that? She hadn't been out of the brace for THAT long, only a month. Full-on running already? I was almost afraid to watch. No, no, I told myself. Linna was a professional. She knew better than I did about what Yumeko could handle at this point. Still made me afraid to watch, though. Last thing I wanted to see was her landing face-first on the pavement upon trying to run. Especially if she was having spasms in her leg.

"Go with her," she suddenly said, pointing at me.

"Huh? Excuse me?!"

She laughed. "Run with Yumeko. You heard me. Make her try to keep up with you."

"That's not a fair race though."

"You saying I'm a lame runner?" Yumeko asked.

"No, no, I didn't say that!" I said, waving my hands in front of me, laughing nervously. "I didn't say that at all! I'm just saying—"

"I'm kidding," she said. "I know what you meant. I'll be fine."

"If you say so." I sighed and gave an embarrassed smile. She was always pulling my leg like that. You'd think after being friends with her for the past ten years, I would know when she was doing that. But she got me every time. But she was sensitive about her leg, even if she tried not to let that on. So I was never sure if I'd actually hit a nerve or not. Not that she would tell me if I ever had.

We got going on the first lap around the building, going at a speed-walking pace, which Yumeko was managing pretty well. I could barely detect her limping at all, which amazed me. She really had made quite the bit of progress since getting the brace off. I knew from this morning, though, that she still had a limp when she ran, so I wondered how she would do once we got to the jogging phase.

Before I knew it, we'd already gone around the building once, which meant we had to kick it up another notch. I started jogging, as did Yumeko, who managed to keep up with me. Then again, I wasn't going at full speed.

"You're doing good," I said, turning around so that I was jogging backwards. "Really good."

"Now you're showing off," she teased, nodding at my jogging backwards. "I know you can go faster than that."

"Sure, but this isn't a race. I'm just here to help you run."

"So do it. We're almost at the halfway point."

I turned around to start jogging properly again, and once we were at the halfway point she yelled at me to go full hilt. I did so, and promptly left her in the dust as I went running as fast as I could back to the front of the building. I stopped once I reached Linna again, feeling guilty, as I couldn't even see her behind me anymore, but Linna urged me to keep going.

"Make her push it," she said. "Make her want to keep up with you."

"Are you sure?" I was doubtful. I'd feel bad if she hurt herself trying to keep up.

"I'm sure. Keep going."

I nodded and started jogging again, as that was what the third lap was. Still, I did feel bad for leaving her behind, so once I got halfway around the building, I stopped and waited for her. It took another minute or two, but eventually I saw her coming around the corner again, and I smiled and waved.

"Don't wait for me," she growled. "Keep going."

"I wanted to wait."

She stopped once she reached me. "You don't need to do that. I can do it just fine. Besides…" She grinned. "I'm the purple one, remember? Just pretend you're a Boomer trying to get away from me. That'll give me enough incentive to catch you."

"That's horrible!" I gasped, though I had to admit the mental imagery was amusing.

"Just like the games we used to play when we were little, right? Remember?"

"Of course I remember. That was your favorite one, and you always had to be the blue one."

"Yup." She leaned against the wall and sat down, and I did the same. "It was just a game then."

"And now…" I looked at her sleeve-clad leg. "You're playing for keeps."

"I know. No one's playing dead now. No starting over and having the others get back up again. No more 'I won't die this time.' Once it's over, it's over. It's…really different from how I thought it'd be."

"What did you think it'd be like?" I asked.

"I dunno. Just…different." She shrugged. "You hear about how easy it was for them way back in the day to kill Boomers. But when you do it yourself…" She sighed. "You know just how much work it takes to do it. They make it look easy 'cause they've been doing it a long time. But once you do it yourself, it's just hard. It's hard work just to stay alive, let alone try to kill them at the same time."

"Different from a video game…"

"Way different."

A real-life video game. That's what she was playing. And she couldn't just erase her data and start over. She couldn't eject or pause that game and come back to it later. She was stuck in it, for eternity, it seemed. And I couldn't join her party and help her, even if I wanted to. What could I do?

"C'mon." Yumeko stood up. "Gotta start up again or Linna's gonna come after us."

I chuckled and stood up myself. "You're right, you're right."

"Now get going. I'm gonna catch you for sure now."

I got started jogging again, with Yumeko giving me a two-second head start, then started jogging after me. "Soon enough, Micchan! Soon enough!"

"Almost at the fourth lap! You sure about that?"

"You just watch!"

* * *

Yumeko wasn't able to catch me, but she did make it all four laps, which seemed to satisfy both her and Linna, and after the therapy session was over, we all rinsed off in the shower and went our separate ways, with Yumeko heading home on her bike while I walked the few blocks back to my apartment building. It was wonderful to see her making such progress, although the more she made, the more scared I was inside, knowing that each positive step she took was a step towards heading back into battle against Boomers. I'd already told her it wasn't my place to convince her to quit, when it was already obvious getting back into battle was what she wanted to do. I didn't know, though, if she wanted to fight again just because of the thrill of battle, or if it was because she wanted to help her friends out. It could've been both, for sure. I had my suspicions as to who the other four Knight Sabers were, but I didn't say anything to Yumeko, and she seemed to appreciate that. She'd been uncomfortable enough just admitting that she was the purple Saber. And she had seemed to know I was on to her. Even if part of me hadn't wanted to know if she was one of them, I was glad she trusted me enough to tell me the truth when I asked.

I felt bad, wishing for her not to recover so fast. I didn't want her to fight. I wanted her to stay safe, and being out there on the street toe-to-toe against Boomers was the least safe place I could think of. But at the same time I wanted to see her achieve her Olympic dream. I was conflicted. I wanted to help her, somehow. But maybe being there at her sessions with her was all I could really do. I wasn't anybody special. I wasn't a Knight Saber. I was just her friend; that's all I could have been.

_Will it all work out, I wonder?_

I looked to my left as I walked through the parking lot, seeing Masahiro revving up his motorcycle. I turned away quickly, but it was too late. He pulled his key out of the ignition and stalked up to me, try as I might to reach the entrance of the apartment building before he did so.

"Hey there," he said with a grin. "Why so late? You have cleaning duty after school today?"

"No," I said quickly. "I was helping Yumeko with her therapy."

"Her leg's still jacked up?"

"Not so much now. She's getting better every day."

"Good, good."

I spun around on him. I knew what he was trying to do. It was obvious, even to me. "Don't…don't you dare think you can get to her through me. Don't you dare think that I don't remember every day what you did to me. I'll always hate you for that. I loved you, you know!"

The grin was still on his face. "What's the big deal? It was just sex."

"It's what you did after that that makes me hate you!"

"That's what a lot of guys do, babe. Screw ya then dump ya out on your ass. I was just preparing you for what the reality is."

I swallowed hard. "The…the reality is that YOU are one of those guys! YOU are the one who introduced me to that reality! And I HATE that you're claiming you're doing this, to me, and to other girls, to prepare them for the real world! They don't need you to do that! And Yumeko's had enough of an introduction to reality to deal with the likes of you coming on to her! And you know what? You know what?" I took a breath and balled up my hands into fists, clutching them at my sides. "I could say the same about Tsubasa! He's giving YOU an idea of what to expect from the real world once everyone knows what you're really like! I almost hope he kills you! Then no one would have to know, and you wouldn't be able to do anything to anybody else like you did what you did to me! They'd be better off! I'd be better off!! And don't you DARE ever try to be buddy-buddy with me again! What you did hurt me a lot! I can't ever forgive you for that!"

Masahiro looked amused.

"W-what's so funny?!"

"You're really getting yourself worked up."

"And that's funny? I'm not laughing!" I reached up, and almost as if my body did it of its own volition, slapped him across the face. His head barely budged, but it certainly wiped the smile from his face. "I hate you, Masahiro!! I always will!! So just leave me and Yumeko alone already!!"

I turned and ran inside the building, not stopping until I reached the elevator, which magically opened the moment I reached it. I pushed past the people who were exiting and punched the button for the sixth floor, and once the door closed and the elevator started its trip up, I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. I was sure he was going to come after me for hitting him. I was a girl. Surely a guy like him would take offense at being hit by a girl. On the flip side though, Yumeko had hit him lots of times, and not with an open hand, either.

I exhaled. I could feel my heart pounding against my chest, threatening to burst through. What I had just done…what had driven me to do that? I never thought I'd do that, yell at Masahiro, yell at anybody, for that matter. Not like that. It was almost…exhilarating. Maybe I had just gotten fed up and just snapped. The palm of my hand still stung from the slap, and as I looked down at it and flexed my fingers, I realized I'd never slapped anyone before, either. But if anyone deserved it, it was him.

"I hate him," I moaned, blinking tears away from my eyes as the elevator stopped on my floor and I exited, heading down the hallway towards my apartment. It wouldn't do for me to be crying when I walked through the door. I didn't want Mom to know what happened. She didn't even know the truth behind me and Masahiro breaking up.

"Michiko," I heard her call out once I opened the door, "is that you? How does shrimp tempura sound tonight?"

"Sounds good," I replied, trying to sound cheery.

"How was school?"

School? I'd almost forgotten about that…along with all the homework I just now remembered I had to do. Oh crap, those songs. I had to translate those songs! "It was ok," I said. "That English assignment got assigned today instead of tomorrow, so that was a surprise. And I have some reading to do for literature class, and a paper to do for chemistry…"

"Well, that can all wait until after dinner. Help me, would you?"

Mom took care of preparing the shrimp and the tempura batter while I prepared the rice and the vegetables. Once I had the rice in the rice cooker, I peeled the carrots and cut them into long strips. Setting those aside, I grabbed hold of a cucumber and cut it into slices, letting the occasional one 'accidentally' find its way into my mouth. Mom looked at me and pretended to scowl at me, but only ended up stealing a few slices for herself, both of us snickering.

It always seemed like the moment dinner was ready, Dad would come strolling through the door, no matter how late it was ready. That proved true tonight as well, for I was just done arranging the vegetables on the plates when I heard the door open and his booming voice came echoing through the apartment.

"Where's my two favorite gals?" he shouted.

"In here, Dad!" I yelled back, setting the plates on the kitchen table. "You had to go in early again, huh?"

"Yeah. You'd think I was the only one who knew how to do anything at that place, y'know?"

"Mom was saying the same thing."

We all sat down and had dinner together, with Dad ranting on about his day at work while Mom was equally passionate about how his coworkers shouldn't be relying so much on him, that he ought to get everyone's salary if he was the only one doing anything of worth, stuff like that. I just smiled and stuffed a piece of tempura into my mouth. It normally irritated me to hear this same routine every evening, but after what had transpired outside earlier, it was nice to know some things never changed.

Alas, that also applied to the amount of homework I had. I'd always have just enough done to keep my head above water, but that was about it. After dinner I had to try to stay afloat in the midst of my translation of the English song into Japanese and the Japanese song into English. I logged onto the computer and quickly searched for the sound bite for the English song, tracking it down easily on a website that had a whole wealth of twentieth-century songs.

Clicking 'play,' I was greeted with the sound of a synthesizer, followed by a guitar. I smiled, looking at the date of the song. 1982. Many of Priss' songs were inspired by songs from that decade, the 1980's. No wonder I had felt instantly at ease with the opening notes. I listened to the song, reading the lyrics, mouthing the words as I went along, listening to the song several times to be sure I had them right.

I ran my eyes over each line. I thought perhaps the first course of action was to write down each word that I knew. The first line in English was "_Here we stand_." I wrote _koko_ over _here_, and since _we_ seemed to refer to two people and not a multitude of people, I wrote _futari_ instead of _watashi-tachi_, and 'to stand' was_ tatsu_, so I wrote that over _stand_.

"_Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two_," I read aloud, groaning. This looked much harder than the first line. I skipped it and went to the next one, "_Sleepless nights_." 'Sleepless' meant 'couldn't sleep,' and I knew 'night,' so I was easily able to translate that into _nemurenai yoru_. "_Losing ground_" was next, and I skipped that as well. I could already tell this was going to be a long night, a sleepless night indeed.

_"I'm reaching for you, you, you_. I think I can do that," I said to myself. 'To reach' was _todoku_, but that was more like when you reach a destination, not reaching out for someone. I looked in my dictionary for the term I was looking for, and found _sashinoberu_ to be the closest definition to what I needed. 'You' would likely be _kimi_ in this case, so I wrote that down as well. "I wonder if I should repeat 'you' three times like it does in the song," I wondered aloud. "It does 'two' three times earlier too. It probably won't rhyme, but…I probably should. Let's see, so 'I'm reaching for you, you, you' would probably be _Watashi wa kimi, kimi, kimi ni sashinobeteru_…"

I skipped down to the chorus and found myself singing aloud, even without the song playing, unaware of just how poignant the lyrics were, as I didn't understand them. "_Somebody love will find you. Break those chains that bind you. One night will remind you how we touched and went our separate ways. If he ever hurts you, true love won't desert you. You know I still love you, though we touched and went our separate ways…_"

It helped that I found myself liking the song. It would have been much more of a chore if I had hated it. Maybe I could get this done tonight after all, and maybe even have my translation make some sort of sense.

"Are we still on for tomorrow, Michiko?" I heard Dad call out from the living room, his voice booming even through my closed bedroom door.

"What's tomorrow?" I called back.

"The 18th. That movie you wanted to see should be coming out in stores then, right?"

"Oh! Right! Getting popcorn?"

"And candy and all the junk food you could eat," he laughed.

"It's a date, then! Tomorrow night, in front of the TV!"

I smiled to myself and went back to work on the song. Yes. Tonight would end well, and tomorrow, after an afternoon with Yumeko I'd have an evening with Dad, doing our weekly ritual of watching the latest comedy. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

**END "The Day Before – Michiko"**


	2. Crystal and Powder: Xania

"**Crystal and Powder – Xania"**

Nobody knows that I am a great connoisseur of movies. Give me some random quote and I can tell you within five seconds what movie that quote is from. Maybe it's a side effect of being with my foster mom for half my life, being subjected to all sorts of twentieth-century shit that for some reason she insists must live on. Whatever. Even without that influence one of my all-time favorite quotes was from an old Disney movie that I'd watch over and over again as a kid, incidentally from that century.

"Like my friend here Timon says, you gotta put your behind in your past."

Put your ass in the past, huh? So what's that, was Pumbaa telling me to moon my past? Fart on it? Take a giant steaming dump on it? Hell, I could do that without being told to. That's all my life with my original family was anyway, shit. Then again, the past has a way of coming up to bite you in the ass, and hell, if you're putting your behind in it, wasn't that just like begging for it to come bite you in the ass? I knew what it was like, literally. As the great scholar Forrest Gump once said, "Something jumped up and bit me. Bit me right in the buttocks." Except the bullet that bit me practically snapped my tail right off too, but that's neither here nor there. Safe to say, though, that it was a pain I did not want recreated in any way, shape, or form ever again. No fucking way.

Putting my behind in the past…sit on it, maybe? Or inviting yourself to get ass-raped by it? I'm sure that wasn't what Pumbaa meant; I mean, he had the mentality of a pre-teen. Food, sleep, and fun, that's what his life was all about. Sounds like a good life to me, even if our definitions of fun were completely different. His probably consisted of splashing around in a wading pool or hunting for bugs. Mine consisted of something a bit more, ahem, adult. But to each his own, right? Hell, before she came into town Rosho's form of fun was hunting down Boomers. NOT my idea of fun, for sure. But damn, was that cool, seeing her and her friends in their armor…

I wished I could take that warthog's advice and put my behind in the past. But it seemed like whenever I tried to, it was like sitting on a barbecue, except instead of scorch marks on my ass, they were left on my soul, in my head. Sure, the wounds would heal, but the scars would always be there, and with every glance at those scars I'd get reminded of the events that caused them. For a long time I just wanted to cut those scars out, forget everything completely, not even realizing that cutting them out would just leave new scars behind. Not fucking fair at all.

Once I left for college in the fall of '56, heading to the greatness that was the University of California at Berkeley, I found all those wounds reopened. Wasn't a surprise though; after all, my goal was to be a social worker, something of a champion to kids who were caught in the same situation I'd been caught in. You could almost say, in a way, I had ten-millionth-degree burns on my ass for the first few months of my freshman year. Rosho had been amazingly astute in detecting my escape methods, those being boys and sex, when I hadn't even realized it until she'd said something. At the time I'd joked with her that maybe my standards for guys were going up, since I hadn't gone out and gotten laid since I screwed with that guy at the secret gun place she got her Spitdevil from. Maybe it wasn't that at all. Maybe a part of me really was ready to confront my past. After all, she did give me the opportunity to bypass Needles when we were on our spring break road trip our senior year of high school…

Oh, hell. Was I really growing up? Me, the nympho? The fact I did NOT seek guys out to screw when I was trying to deal with what being a social worker would entail? The hell did that all mean?

And yet, here I was, in the summer before my sophomore year of college, about to sustain the deepest burns to my ass that I'd ever have, yet well aware of – and hating – the fact that they would be necessary burns. Here I was, preparing myself to visit the prison where the people who had ruined me as a kid were incarcerated for their crimes.

The prison that held the people I was fucking loath to call my parents.

They say drugs make you crazy. Well, I was sober as a nun and I knew I was fucking insane to pull this shit. Surely any sane person would just leave them to rot. But no, something called curiosity nagged at my brain. Why? Why? The why stabbed at the back of my mind. I figured what the hell, may as well bite the bullet. My ass had already bitten one once, anyway.

Fuck. I really was insane. And the scary thing was, I didn't really care.

* * *

Middle of the night. Couldn't sleep. I hated that. It always seemed like in the evening you'd be dead tired and wanna head to bed ASAP, but the moment you lay down, you're wide awake. Go fig. I'd fallen asleep and woken up several times, and I was trying my damndest not to look at the clock, knowing that would only stress me out more and make me even more unable to fall back asleep. I envied the guy next to me in bed, snoring away without a care in the world. Of course, considering what we'd been doing earlier in the evening, little wonder he was out like a light. I'd normally be out too, but hell. I was in a strange city, and about to take the biggest leap I'd ever taken in my life.

I got up and slipped on a robe, sitting down at the desk, where a stack of folders sat. The case files from my youth, when my parents had gotten arrested and subsequently headed to trial, certain that they'd somehow beat the charges against them. The fuck were they thinking? I flipped through one of the folders, which had evidence photos gathered from the day of the arrest, as well as pictures of me. I grimaced as I came upon one picture, a close-up of a bald spot on my head. I remembered that. I was nine years old, getting my hair pulled yet again. I was always getting it pulled as punishment when I'd toss out the shit they were cooking up in the kitchen, but that time had been different. The memory flashed in front of my eyes, as if it were happening at that moment…

"The hell is goin' on with you?!" Mom demanded, her alcohol breath making me gag in my mouth as she got in my face. "The school called me, y'know?! They were saying you've been getting into all sorts of trouble, taking kids' food from their lunchboxes. Picking fights! Why the hell are you doin' that, huh? We feed you, and take care of you!"

I didn't say a word. She was probably so out of it she couldn't tell time, so out of it that she didn't know it had been weeks, months since she'd made a half-decent meal for me. Of course I'd had to steal from others' lunches. I was starving. She took better care of her fucking drugs than she did of me. Her meth was her baby now, not me.

"Answer me, you little harlot!!" she screamed, grabbing a handful of my hair. I screamed as she gave a hard yank, pain shooting through my head and scalp, my neck muscles straining. "I give you everything you need, right here! Me and your daddy!"

"Stop it!!" I pleaded. "It hurts!!"

"So ANSWER me!!" Another yank, along with the unmistakable sound of ripping as hair fibers began to break.

"It hurts, Mom!! Oww!!"

Another tug, and more ripping. It was enough. I just wanted her to stop. I kicked her in the stomach, forcing her to let go of my hair. I could see her drop a handful of black hair as she stumbled back, putting a hand to her stomach, unable to give chase as I ran upstairs to the bathroom, my scalp screaming in pain from where the hair had been ripped out. I couldn't let her do this anymore. No more hair pulling, no more of this. I grabbed a large pair of scissors from the cabinet, held them up to my scalp, and just started cutting anything and everything. Black hair piled at my feet as I cut away, and when I was finished, I was almost completely bald, only short wisps of hair adorning my head.

Mom finally caught up to me, and screamed when she saw what I had done. Somehow, I had the feeling that she would've grabbed my hair for cutting my hair off, but the sweet irony of the situation prevented that.

I opened my eyes and gazed down at the photo again. It had been taken six months after that incident, and the day after my parents' arrest. There were two-inch-long pieces of hair surrounding the bald spot, which was only starting to show signs of hair growing again. It took another year for that spot to fill in, but even now, I was trembling with the memory, scratching at the spot on my head she had ripped the hair from, as if her ghost was standing behind me poised to do it all over again.

Along with that picture, there were others. Pictures of the house, of the kitchen/lab, of the faint bruises left on my arms from when she or Dad would grab me just a little too hard. And of course, their mug shots. The first one was of my mom, measuring 5'7" according to the height chart she was standing in front of, stringy black hair hanging down to her tits. Drugged-out brown eyes stared back at me, surrounded by deep black circles and crow's feet, her closed mouth hiding the damage done to her teeth. Scars on her cheeks and forehead left from picking at them in the midst of her drug-fueled paranoia. The sign she held up said RANDALL, TANJA, and below that, the date, 9/17/47.

The picture of my dad was no better. The chart behind him measured him at 6'1", but when you're as little as I was, he seemed more like a hundred feet tall. His formerly black hair was streaked in grey, especially at his temples, and like my mom, he had deep circles around his eyes and a major case of crow's feet, glaring at the camera as if it was responsible for everything. I had feared those hazel eyes of his, almost more than I feared my mom. Sure, he had never pulled my hair, but he knew how to hit me so hard I couldn't sit down comfortably for a week. Kids at school would just think I was nervous. The teachers thought I had ADD. No, what I really had was a case of bruising on my ass and thighs, but I thought I could handle it. I thought if I just loved them enough, put up with it, then they would stop, that they would stop hitting me and cooking their 'grown-up candy'. Thought if I just loved them enough, that I would be worthy of love too…

I shut that folder and shoved it aside, almost shoving it off the edge of the desk. I was sweating, and if I hadn't been awake enough before, I sure was now. I turned back to the guy in bed. Yep, still asleep. Not wanting to wake him up, I picked up the receiver on the vidphone and started dialing a long-distance number. The girl I was calling would be awake for sure. It would only be late evening where she was, assuming she wasn't 'out'…

A few rings later and I heard the receiver on her end click, followed by a brunette-haired girl appearing on the screen, said hair tied back in a tight braid. Weird to see her like that, but she'd been growing her hair out, for whatever reason.

"_Moshi moshi_?" she said before her eyes lit up, recognizing me. "Xania!! Isn't it the middle of the night there?!" she exclaimed, having switched to English. "How are you?"

I yawned. Damn, NOW I was feeling tired all of a sudden. Of course. "I'm doin' ok," I said. "And yeah, it's late, or early, depending on how ya look at it. But that's alright, I couldn't sleep anyway. How're things over there?"

"Oh, I'm still slaving away at Linna's gym," Rosho joked. "Gotta pay the rent somehow. And I took in this girl last night also. Her name's Emi, and I just found her in an alley near here. Some guys had just dumped her off, and I felt sorry for her, so I'm letting her stay here for a while until I can find something out about her."

Okay. That came out of left field. I frowned to myself and held my chin in thought. "Uh, what about her parents?" It was the first thing that came to mind besides "What the fuck are you doing?! She's not some stray cat!"

"That's the thing. She has no memory of anything. Farthest back she can remember is waking up in the truck she was dumped from."

"Amnesic, huh? That's just super," I groaned. Had to hand it to her; she always was finding some interesting shit to do, or in this case, finding interesting people. Felt like I was friends with a soap opera character sometimes. "I don't know the laws there, Rosho, but I'm pretty sure what you're doin' is kidnapping."

She scratched her head. "I call it being a good Samaritan," she said with a shy smile. "I couldn't just leave her. She'd have been killed before too long. And don't talk to me about hospitals. I already went over that with Nene."

Took the words out of my mouth. "Hey, I agree with ya," I said, nodding, "but I'm learnin' all sorts of stuff bein' in college for this social worker shit, and this is what the law says. I've gotta know this stuff cold by the time I graduate."

"That's not for three more years."

"Yeah, but I've gotta start memorizin' it now." I let out a breath. "Did I tell ya what I'm doin' right now?"

She blinked, her curiosity suddenly piqued. "No. What are you doing?"

"I'm trackin' down my parents. I'm in San Jose right now readin' up on their files before I head to the prison to pay a little visit."

I swore that Rosho almost dropped the receiver. Couldn't blame her. I HAD given her shit many a time for bringing them up, so to her I was sure this was a bit out-of-character for me to do. "Seriously?" she stuttered. "You're…you're really gonna go see them?"

"Yup," I said with a nod, my face hardening. "I just want to ask them somethin' before I toss them out of my life for good. The 'why.' That's been buggin' me for the last…shit…last ten years now. I know I probably won't get the answer I want, but I want to at least hear their side of things."

"But you never wanted to hear it before," she pointed out. "Why now?"

"Honestly, I don't know." I sighed. "I don't—"

A scream from Rosho's end interrupted us. She made a comical face – well, it was funny to me anyway -- and screamed, "EMI!! _Ittai nani o shita?!_" as she ran off-screen. Thanks to having taken a first-year Japanese course at Berkeley I understood perfectly what she said. Roughly "What the hell did you do?!" I just sat and chuckled, waiting while she took care of whatever her new girlfriend had done.

A few moments later, she sat back down, looking somewhat frazzled, mumbling an apology. "What was that?" I chuckled. "What DID she do?"

"Oh, you understood that?"

"W'll, duh. I did take a first-year Japanese course. If I didn't understand what _'Ittai nani o shita?!'_ meant, the teacher would shoot me!" I said, letting out a laugh.

"Nice to know I had some sort of good influence on you," she said, chuckling along with me. "Did you memorize the kana alright?"

"Yup. The kanji are hard too, but I guess I just gotta practice. The teacher said I'm one of the best students in the class, and that she's looking forward to seeing me in the second-year class next month."

She smiled. "Well, that's great, Xania. You should be proud."

"How would you say that in Japanese? The lookin' forward to next month thing? I know the _tanoshimi ni shiteiru_ part, but what about the rest?" That in Japanese meant 'to look forward to,' but since _tanoshimu_ by itself meant 'to enjoy' or 'to have fun,' I had originally thought it'd meant something like that. Dunno what I was thinking when I decided to try to pick Japanese up, but then again, English is probably backwards for anybody not familiar with it.

She grinned. "Let's see…it'd go something like _raigatsu ni wa ni-nen no jugyoo ni Xania-san o miru no wa tanoshimi ni shiteimasu._ But if she said 'August' instead of 'next month,' you'd replace the _raigatsu_ with _hachigatsu_."

"Gotcha." I let out another yawn; damn things were sneaking up on me. "Damn, I need to get back to bed."

"Yes, you should. I know how you like your sleep," she teased. "Let me know how things go with your parents, ok?"

I grunted and nodded. Yeah, I was reeeally looking forward to that. "I will. I'll call ya in a couple days, ok?"

"Ok. See ya later."

"See ya. Bye."

I hung up the phone and sighed, leaning back in my chair. Now my body felt awake and tired at the same time. God damn it. Why couldn't it make up its mind? Now my thoughts were going to the situation with her Emi friend. But hell, I couldn't do anything from here; I knew shit about Japanese laws. I was sure she'd figure it out somehow. That's what her friends were for, and besides, I had my own situation to think about.

Damn, I was all discombobulated now.

"What're you doing up?" a voice mumbled from the bed, the owner of that voice sitting up. "Come back to bed, Xania."

I grinned shyly and slipped off my robe, sliding into bed beside him. "Couldn't sleep," I said lamely, kissing him.

"Try not to worry about it, alright? I'm sure the visit tomorrow will work out just fine. They won't be able to hurt you. You know that."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, trying to find comfort in his warm body, now pressing against mine as he held me close. Wish I had his optimism. "Wish I knew that, but wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster."

"Things worked out with us, didn't they? I told you I would take care of you."

"I know, Greg. You did say that, but…"

"But? I'm here."

"Yeah, on leave."

"So? Only a few more months in Pakistan then I'll be home for good. Give me that chance. I can show you the world isn't out to get you. Okay?"

"Okay. But you know what'll happen if you fuck up."

"Oh, I know," he laughed, kissing me again. "I know. Here. Let me make you feel better."

I moaned into his mouth as his lips closed over mine, feeling our bodies joining together. For now, at least, I could let myself feel good, let him comfort me. I needed all the help I could get, to prepare for what was to come tomorrow. I hated not knowing what was gonna happen, but for right now, I was lost in Greg's embrace, and for right now, that was all I needed to happen.

* * *

The funny thing about Greg and me being apart for so long, first breaking up, then having him join the Army and get deployed to the Middle East, was that he had no idea how much I'd changed in all that time, so naturally it seemed like the only way he knew to get me to be happy was to try to satisfy my sexual desires. I'd been with him longer than any of my previous partners, so he was more in tune to what I liked. As a result, we were in bed all morning, but eventually my stomach reminded me that it, too, had to be satisfied, so finally around noon we both got dressed and headed out to a fast-food place to grab something, even if by now it was more like lunch than breakfast.

"I know what you're tryin' to do," I said, biting down into my burger. "But it's not gonna work."

"Isn't it better to make love than make war?" he said. "I mean, I would know."

"I know you know." I swished my tail behind me in frustration. "Don't ya think people woulda done that if it were just that easy? I guess it takes less energy to hate than to love."

Greg nodded. "Yeah. But that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing, why I couldn't stop this morning. You need to focus more on the good things than the bad things. I don't know why you want to see your parents so bad. It's just not like you. You've always been a live-in-the-moment kind of girl. That's what caught my eye, your spunky, go-get-'em attitude."

"I never said I wanted to see 'em," I mumbled, taking a large slurp from my soda.

"So why?"

"It's complicated."

"There's no such thing as closure, you know. If that's what you're looking for, forget it."

"I'm not stupid, Greg. I know that. I guess I just wanna show 'em I'm not that ten-year-old they smacked around before they got arrested. I dunno."

"Is it that you want to forgive them?"

I grumbled. "Hell no. Fuck if I'll forgive 'em for all that shit they put me through."

He put his hands up calmly and stated, "I'm just saying is all. Like you just said, it takes less energy to hate, and that's probably why there have been all those wars throughout history. It's easier to fire a weapon than to just try to talk things out, but with some people there is no talking, only fighting. They think their opinion on certain matters is fact, and damn the rest. With your parents I'm sure you'd rather feed them to a rabid pack of pitbulls than say you love them and forgive them. And I'm not saying you should forgive them. Whether you do that is up to you."

"All that forgiveness bullshit, you're sounding like my mom." In this instance, of course, I was referring to my uber-religious foster mom.

"I know, I know. And I'm not meaning to. I'm just asking, why? You haven't seen them in ten years, haven't so much as written them a letter or talked to them on the phone. You yourself have said that they're dead to you. So why now? Why bring all this up?"

"Why are you askin' so many fuckin' questions?" I spat, sucking on the straw until my soda was gone. "I told you, it's complicated!"

"I think you want to believe there's such thing as closure, even if you know there isn't. That's nothing to be ashamed of. But let me tell you something, Xania. I know what's gone on. You spent the first ten years of your life in that hellhole, and you've spent the last ten of it trying to distance yourself from it, pretend it never happened. But finally you're making it work for you. You're using it to help out other kids. You, the one who'd've rather just ignored it all. That's something you should be commended for."

"I'm not lookin' for a medal out of all this, Greg."

"I know." He stopped, chewing mindlessly on his fries.

"I didn't say stop. Keep talkin'."

He smirked and swallowed. "Okay. Well, anyway, this must have something to do with that. Right? It's safe to say you'd know what you're dealing with, since you came from such a horrible background, but this isn't about showing off to your parents, is it? And I don't think you're only now wanting to see them because you're no longer a minor. If that was the case you'd have gone to see them two years ago. I think what's going on now is that now that you've grown up, you know what you've lost. What could have been. And you're only now starting to mourn. They're not dead to you, not yet, because you never got to say goodbye."

I shook my head, suddenly finding my fries very attractive at the moment.

"Look up at me, Xania. It's ok. Nobody needs to take a psychology class to figure you out. It's pretty simple if you get down to the bottom of it."

He reached down to put his hand on mine, and I pulled away. The hell was he thinking? It wasn't as simple as he was making it out to be. Even I couldn't come up with the reasons why I had to go visit them.

"Xania. Look at me."

I reluctantly looked up.

"You don't have to be ashamed, not around me. And you don't have to do this alone. That's why you called me when I got back on leave, right?"

"So?" I mumbled.

"So it's okay to have someone there with you. Really, it is. Rocío was there with you when you revisited your old house in Needles, and I can be there with you when you go to that prison and see your parents. I know you wouldn't have called me if you didn't want me to be here."

I shook my head, suddenly feeling the need to wipe at my eyes. "Dammit, Greg. Stop. You have no idea how sappy you're sounding right now."

"I know exactly how sappy I'm sounding, and I don't care. This is what a guy does for the girl he loves."

"The hell does that mean anyway? Love? Ha."

He leaned over the table and planted a light kiss on me. "You know what it is. Don't be so cynical. I know you can't say it right now, but that IS how I feel about you." He stood up. "C'mon. Let's go see a movie. It's not like you having such a drawn look on your face."

I smirked and stood up as well, tossing my burger wrapper and empty soda container in the trash. "Who says I'm drawn? It's just weird seein' ya talk about all this love shit."

"It's how I feel and you can't change that," he said bluntly with a smile on his face. I had to admit, seeing Greg smile made it hard for me not to smile as well.

"Don't you dare finish that with 'You complete me,' or you die."

He let out a whoop of laughter. "Oh, no! I know better than that!!"

"Good! Now let's go see that movie! You said you were takin' me to one, so I'm holdin' you up to that!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

* * *

The movie we ended up going to did distract me for a little while. So did the bullshitting around the mall we did after that, but once dinner came around my mind found its way back to what I was gonna be doing tomorrow. Tomorrow. It still scared the hell out of me. What was I supposed to expect? I knew they weren't going to look the same as I remembered them; ten years in prison in addition to all the drugs they did were bound to age a person. Hell, my mother had been a beautiful person at one point. Part of me wanted to think that if she hadn't gotten started on all that, that we would look more like sisters now than mother and daughter, or if my imagination was right, grandmother and daughter. And my father...I didn't care. If I went to the prison and found out he, or both of them for that matter, had killed themselves overnight rather than face me, I probably wouldn't have cared. But that would also have made all this effort, all the bravery I'd mustered to even try to do this, for nothing. If they knew what was good for them, they better NOT kill themselves. Not before I had my say, at least.

I did have some consolation. I'd promised myself if I did this, I'd never have to do it again, that once would be plenty. One time was enough to tell them to go to hell, if they weren't well-acquainted with Lucifer already.

Greg tried to sex me up again once we got back to the hotel, but I turned him down, much to his surprise. He knew why, though, and seemed to understand. He sat and flipped through the channels on the TV while I sat at the desk and looked through my parents' files again, going past all the horrible pictures of them and me and the state the house was in when they'd gotten arrested, and going for the list of charges each of them faced. I took out the piece of paper and looked it over. I'd already done so about a million times, but for some reason I kept coming back to it, mostly out of disbelief of how few charges they each had faced.

Each of them had been charged with the exact same things. One charge of possession of the chemicals needed to make meth, for which someone could face two, four, or six years in the slammer. One count of possession with intent to sell or transport meth: sixteen months, two years, or three years. One count of sale or transportation of meth: two to four years. One count of child endangerment: two, four, or six years. One count of child abuse: again, two, four, or six years. And the last, one count of resisting arrest, which unlike the others was only a misdemeanor, and was punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $1,000 fine. Even with only one count of each of all those, if convicted of all of them they each had faced a maximum of twenty-eight years in prison. And somehow, they each had only been sentenced to twelve, less than half of what they could have gotten, less than half of what they rightly deserved.

One count of each charge of child endangerment or child abuse. What a crock that was. After everything I had told the cops about getting my hair pulled on, about being the taste tester at least three or four times for their concoctions. Hell, they had the pictures of the bald spot, of the bruises on my arms. They were the ones who had to scoop me out of bed when they were arresting my parents because the chemicals and fumes had leeched into the walls and made me ill. They'd had to decontaminate me in the street, told me I couldn't take anything from the house with me, because it was all ruined. What the hell made them decide only one count of each was adequate?! And there was one other thing that got me: how lenient the punishment was for child abuse. It wasn't that much more severe than for any of the drug charges, only a year or two more. Guess that showed how much the justice system cared about abused children. It pissed me off.

I let myself smirk. Maybe I should've been studying to be an attorney instead. I could lobby to get the laws changed, or at least make them a hell of a lot stricter than they currently were. I couldn't have been the only one outraged at the level of 'punishment' for child abusers. I just shook my head; sure, I could do that, but first things first. I had to see how things were at ground zero, on the front lines. Maybe I could spend ten years doing the social worker thing, study on the side, take the bar exam at the end of all that, then because of my experience on the field, be a hundred times more persuasive in tweaking the laws.

I'm sure it wasn't as easy as it seemed in my mind, but it sure made me feel good. I could do that. Yeah. Thanks to Rosho's aunt Sylia it wasn't like I didn't have the resources to go ahead and go to law school too. But no, one thing at a time. I had to at least finish college for the social worker stuff first, then I could go ape-shit on the law stuff.

Heh. So this was what it was like to look forward to the future, to feel like you can really make the world better. Sure, it'd still be a shithole for the most part, but this corner of the world, at least, I could try to make a little better, a little more tolerable. I had to at least try.

"What're you smiling about?" Greg observed, laying on the bed with his arms folded behind his head as he turned his attention from the TV.

"I just got an idea for an alternate career move."

"What's that?"

"Xania Peters: attorney at law."

He groaned loudly. "You sure you're not high?"

"Didn't touch 'em today. Why? It's not THAT out there."

"You're not gonna turn into another Jack McCoy-type person, are ya?"

"Would you prefer Lennie Briscoe?"

"No, I'd prefer Olivia Benson. Or just you as you are."

"Hey, you went and joined the Army even though I didn't want you to. Who the hell are you to tell me what I can and can't be? It's my life."

"The job's known for burning people out, that's all."

"Don't worry about me doin' that. I've got too much for work for to do that."

Greg gazed at me in thought. "No."

"No?" I repeated, confused.

He smiled. "No, I'd say you're more like Elliott Stabler…"

I laughed. "Oh, fuck you."

* * *

Today was the day. For the first time in ten years, I was going to be face to face with my parents. I was so nervous that I felt like I was gonna puke before I'd even eaten anything, but Greg said the best thing to calm my stomach down was, indeed, something to eat, so he took me out for a light breakfast of eggs and hash browns, and I'll admit it did make me feel a little better. My hands kept clenching into fists the entire morning, though, as if getting ready for a fight. Couldn't be helped.

I had been warned beforehand about the rules I would have to abide by when visiting. No shorts more than two inches above the knee. No cleavage. No notes, no money, no denim besides jeans, no underwire bras, no shades, and no wearing of jewelry with the exception of wedding rings. So instead of my usual shorts, which weren't Daisy Dukes by any means but were still too short anyway, I settled for a pair of dark denim jeans, and topped that with a V-neck shirt that was flattering but didn't expose any cleavage. I could change my clothes easily enough, but having to do without my shades was gonna feel weird. I always wore my shades.

I sighed to myself as Greg and I made the drive down to Morgan Hill, which was a forty-five minute drive south of San Jose, feeling the knot in the pit of my stomach doing its best to take root. I hated not knowing what to expect. Were they going to be happy to see me? Angry? Surprised? It was a stupid question to be sure; I'd had to submit a form known as CDCR Visitor Questionnaire Form 106, which my parents had to send me themselves, so obviously they knew I was at least thinking about visiting, plus I'd had to submit my fingerprints and subject myself to a background check, which I wasn't worried about. Any trouble I'd gotten into with the law would've been expunged from my record upon turning eighteen anyway, not that said trouble would've been anything for the prison wardens to worry about anyway. I'd warned the visiting sergeant beforehand about my tail, so presumably that wasn't going to present any problems…

I must've been spacing out, because before I knew it, we were pulling up to the prison. San Andreas State Penitentiary, built in 2033 according to the sign, and from what I already knew, it was a medium-security facility with a population of about two-thousand inmates, many of them serving time for drug crimes like my parents were, along with a few who were in there for murder, though the worst of the worst were kept over in San Quentin. Not that that made me feel any better; I didn't fear any friggin' axe murderers. It was my parents that scared me. I think I'd have rather been locked in a room with Manson than with them, but here I was.

Upon pulling up to the gate, both of us had to hand over our IDs, plus submit to a search of the car to make sure we weren't smuggling in anything, and once the guards were satisfied, they let us on through, and we pulled into the visitors' parking lot and got out of the car, with Greg taking a long pull from a bottle of water he'd brought along.

"So what happens now?" he asked.

"What happens now," I said slowly, "is that you're gonna sit out here with the car while I go inside." I handed him my shades.

"What? Why?" He looked confused.

I smiled. "Thanks for comin'. I just needed somebody with me to make sure I didn't chicken out. But I think I got it from here."

"You sure? You're shaking."

"Of course I'm shakin'. This is like goin' in for a root canal when you've never even been to a dentist. But I gotta do this, and I gotta do it alone. Hopefully this won't take long."

He stood back and nodded. "All right, Xania. But if you need me, don't hesitate to yell for me, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks."

I kissed him, then headed inside, a guard escorting me to the entrance to the visiting area, where another guard, the visiting sergeant, took a look at my ID.

"Xania Peters?" He took a look through some papers. "Here to visit…let's see…Tanja and Ronald Randall, correct?"

"Yes, sir," I stated.

"Do you have a copy of the 106 with you?"

"I do." I handed it over to him, along with a copy of my fingerprints, and upon taking a look at those, he nodded and handed them back to me.

"Go ahead and step through," he said, nodding at the metal detector. I nodded acknowledgment and walked through, predictably setting it off. A third guard went over my body with a wand to be sure I wasn't carrying any metal on me, but the only part of me that went off when she ran it over me was my tail, which twitched in reflex to the wand going off.

"You warned me about the tail beforehand," the sergeant recollected. "Was it attached for medical purposes?"

"No."

"Does it do anything besides just act as a tail?"

"You mean does it have a mike or a secret carrying compartment?" I chuckled. "No. It's just a tail. What you see is what you get."

"Alright, then." He nodded past the metal detector. "Mr. and Mrs. Randall will be seated at a table to the far left of the room. They'll be wearing orange jumpers, like all the inmates, with IDs clipped to their chests identifying them. You may not recognize them offhand because it's been so long since you've seen them."

I was confused. How did he know that? "Have they not had any visitors besides me?" I queried.

"No, ma'am. Besides their attorneys, they've had no visitors whatsoever."

"Heh. Maybe I shoulda kept it that way," I muttered darkly as I headed in. "Thanks."

The visitors room looked to be about the size of a middle school gym, with picnic-style tables lined up in neat rows throughout. The walls were a drab beige, with the jumpers of the inmates providing the only real splash of color. I counted seven inmates in the room, with family sitting and visiting with four of them. The fifth one was sitting at a table in the middle, arms folded, waiting patiently. He turned and looked at me with a lecherous smile, and I turned away quickly, focusing on the remaining two, who were sitting at a table to the far left, talking amongst themselves. I swallowed hard. That had to be them.

I walked up to them, and upon hearing me they both looked up, interest in their eyes. It hardly looked like them at all. They had aged at least twenty years in the ten since I had last seen them. Black hair had turned silver, and wrinkles had broken out across their faces and around their eyes like so much bad acne. The man who was my father, in particular, had jowls that would've made Walter Matthau proud.

"Bridget," he said in a gravelly voice. "Sit down, huh?"

I did so, my legs feeling like they were about to turn into butter.

My mother smiled, and I had to keep from recoiling. Most of her teeth were gone, and what was left were in various colors that teeth should never be in, broken and rotting. "When did you get that tail on?" she asked. Her voice hadn't changed at all; my brain instantly recognized that tone, and I could already feel a tension headache forming as a result.

"When I was thirteen," I said.

"It looks good on you," she said. Her attention turned to my hair. "Don't tell me you just rolled out of bed without combing your hair."

"It's always like this."

"Why don't you grow it out? You used to have such long, flowing hair."

"Yeah, well, you know why I cut it," I spat.

"You're still sore about that? That was a long time ago."

I gritted my teeth. "Why wouldn't I be sore about it, huh? Ever had your hair pulled?"

"Enough," my father growled, clearing his throat, which sounded full of phlegm. "Why are you here, Bridget? Just to talk about all that?"

"Yeah, pretty much," I replied bluntly. "It's not like I suddenly decided we should be a family again. We never were. Your family was made up of you two, your drugged-out friends, and the stuff you cooked in the kitchen. I had no part of it. All I was to you was a lookout, a fuckin' taste-tester."

"Language," my mother barked.

"Oh, fuck you. You had quite a mouth on you yourself when you were yellin' at me and tellin' me to leave your crap alone. You really fancied yourself to be good parents, huh? Well, why the hell do you THINK I was stealin' from other kids' lunch boxes, huh? Certainly wasn't 'cause I was stuffed! Why do you think I hid out at our neighbor Jill's house when you two would start fightin', gettin' paranoid that somebody was spyin' on you?! You two scared the living shit out of me! And even back then I knew that wasn't normal! Not all parents are like that! Parents shouldn't be like that at all! So tell me, Mom and Dad. Tell me. What the fuck made you think meth was worth sacrificin' everything for, huh? Tell me, was it worth it? Was it worth losin' me, losin' twelve years of your life to this dump? Ten gone, two to go, right? So what're you gonna do once you get out? Gonna move back to Needles and start up again? Huh? Huh?!"

My father leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his chin, almost looking amused. "Look at you. Getting so worked up. You think you have it all figured out, huh? You think it's as simple as you're saying?"

"I DON'T know. That's why I'm asking YOU." I hadn't even said anything yet and it already looked like he was mocking me. "What made you start on that shit, huh?"

"Nothing made us start on anything," my mother said with a frown. "You know how Needles was back then. Nothing to do there unless your idea of fun is drinkin' and fuckin', and your dad here has had something of an ED problem since you were born, so that left out the fuckin' part of the equation."

"Heh. Too bad," I said with a smirk.

"You think you're any better than us, Bridget? Meredith has told us what's goin' on with you," she said, pointing a finger at me. "She's told us about your whorin' around, about you fuckin' anythin' that moves."

My smirk turned into a sneer. "I ain't been whorin' around. What I do with my body ain't her business, and you're makin' it sound like she's been sayin' I'm a prostitute. I ain't. I like sex but that doesn't mean I fuck anything that moves. I like sex but that doesn't mean I ain't careful. Abortions? Zero. STDs? Zip. I put a glove on it before I touch it. That's how it's supposed to work. You can't exactly do that with meth. No such thing as bein' careful with meth."

"It's still a vice. Drugs are a vice. Food is a vice. Sex is a vice. Your father and I may have been addicts, but so are you, dear. And any vice can kill you. Any vice can destroy you."

I laughed out loud, despite the knot in my stomach forming again. "I know what you're doin'. You're tryin' to make me sound just as bad as you. Well, I'm NOT anywhere NEAR as bad as you. I haven't gone and fucked up other people's lives because of it. I haven't hurt myself because of it. Now meth, that's ALL that meth does. NOTHING good comes out of it! It wrecks your body, your teeth, your mind, everything! Don't you DARE try to take me down to your level! That's what bullies do, and that's what you are! That's what you always were, just a pair of bullies!"

It was true I liked sex, but addicted to it? Hardly. The hell was she trying to do, make it sound like I was just like her, just like Dad? There was no fucking comparison! "What the hell started it anyway, huh?" I demanded. "You tellin' me you started on meth just 'cause fuckin' got taken out of the equation? That's a laugh."

"A friend introduced me to it one day," Dad said, letting out a few wet coughs before continuing. "But it's not something you can do only once and be done with it. Once was all it took, and it was no fun to take it alone, so I had your mom try it out some time later, and it became somethin' that we could do together, as a couple. Gather the ingredients, then come home and cook 'em."

"Oh yeah, a real wholesome family activity," I jeered.

"You obviously weren't old enough to take part, but we didn't have to worry about you when we were busy cookin'. You knew how to look out for yourself and stay out of trouble."

"Old enough to taste-test the results though, right?" I growled. "Stop it. You weren't saints by any stretch of the word." His and her bullshit excuses were starting to make me sick. Maybe the meth had eaten holes in their brains too.

"Neither are you, Bridget."

"Heh. Maybe I'm not, but I'm a lot closer to sainthood than either of you will ever be. Hell, maybe I oughta thank you two for fuckin' up my life. Thank you so fuckin' much."

They both looked confused.

"That's right, I'm thankin' ya both. Know why? 'Cause it's made me that much more determined to make sure no one else ever gets their life fucked up like mine got fucked up. Aintcha proud?"

I leaned back and laughed out loud, pressing my hand to my forehead. It had just come to me. It didn't matter what they thought. Didn't matter if they were proud of me, didn't matter why or how they had started on the meth. They did, and that was that. Why the hell was I here searching for answers, when I didn't need them at all? Why had I thought I had needed them? Why had I felt this burning need to be validated? Did it matter whether I was validated or not? Weren't my experiences validation enough?

I realized, I won.

"Yes, yes," I hooted, "you oughta be very proud. Your dear daughter is gonna become one of those social workers that you hate so much. You fucked up in the greatest way ever. Congratulations. I'm gonna make sure that no kid ever has to suffer because of people like you ever again. So in a way, yeah, I guess you two are real heroes. Real fuckin' superheroes. But if you think that makes what you two did excusable, then hell no it doesn't. It's somethin' I never should've gone through. No kid should. The job I wanna do shouldn't even be needed, but hey, the world's a shithole, right? I guess that means by necessity I gotta become a superhero too."

I jabbed a finger at the both of them. "Two years, right? Two more years till you two get out?"

"Yeah," Dad replied. "What of it?"

"Heh. Take those two years and choke on 'em. This is it. If you thought I was gonna start visitin' you regularly and hopin' we could be some sort of 'family' again after you two get out, forget about it. After this, I am done. Don't even bother to look me up or try to track me down. I ain't a Randall no more. I ain't your daughter no more, nor was I ever, because you two were never any sort of parents to me. Bridget Randall died a long time ago. Right now you've only got Xania Peters, a loud, proud girl with a tail and a wail, and right now she is gonna tell you to do the world a favor. Pull your lower lip over your head and swallow. Good day."

I got up and marched out of the visitors room, with the two people formerly known as my parents yelling after me to stop. But I didn't look back. I was done looking behind me.

"Xania!" Greg exclaimed when he saw me. "How did it go? You're smiling."

"I told 'em I'm done with 'em," I said. "I didn't come here to play catch-up. That's all I wanted to say."

"Meredith just called me a little bit ago. She was wondering if you were still gonna go through with it."

"Well, call her back and tell her I did. And that it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it'd be."

"It wasn't?"

"Nope. It's the case of the little girl growing up to be just as big as the monsters. Not nearly so scary when you're the same size and the monsters are nothin' but decrepit old fools."

He smiled and put an arm around my shoulder. "Wanna get out of here?"

"Yeah. I'm done."

Five minutes later we were back on the highway, heading north. I put my shades back on and leaned back, feeling the breeze blow through my hair. Twenty years old, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly free. No more monsters under the bed or in the closet. I hadn't exactly made peace, nor had I had closure. Closure really was a myth. I hadn't found the answers I was looking for, but at the same time, I'd realized I didn't need to.

I'd found my own, and that was enough.

**END "Crystal and Powder – Xania"**


	3. Love Me Tonight: Emi

"**Love Me Tonight – Emi"**

Several clicks, then a rush of cold air escaping my enclosure as the glass lid opened up. Those were the first things I was aware of as I awoke from my sleep. How long I'd been asleep this time, I knew not. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that I was being awakened again, and that meant my services were needed.

My eyelids were slow to part, and when they did, the first thing I did was turn my head to the side, where I saw an old man typing on a computer. A familiar face, one I saw every time that I was awakened. His silver hair was always slicked back, and I could hear him exhale through his pig-nose as he concentrated on the screen.

He turned to look at me, and smiled a smile that I suppose you could call grandfatherly. "Rise and shine, Emi," he said gently.

"Hello, Mr. Anderson," I said, stepping out of the pod, naked as the day I came off the assembly line. Whenever I got put into my cold sleep after a mission, it was always like this, naked. A human might feel shame, being like this, but to me it was normal, just a part of going to sleep and waking up again. "It's nice to see you again."

"Same here, same here."

"How long have I been asleep this time?"

"Longer than usual. Ninety-one days," he said. "Let me get you a robe so you can walk around a little bit. I want to check on your systems and make sure everything is running smoothly."

"I can do a self-diagnostic for that."

He fetched a robe from a closet nearby and draped it over my shoulders, saying, "You could do that. But let me just make sure, alright? My bosses will have more than just my head if I don't."

"Fine."

I slipped my arms through the sleeves and tied the sash around my waist, turning to look at the other pods next to mine. Four others, looking much like elongated eggs with a clear lid to see inside. Of the four, three were occupied by other 33Ds, with monitors above them keeping track of their systems and any signs of trouble. I always felt strange, looking at my brethren in their cold sleep. It was almost like they were dead. I saw no signs of breath, no rising or falling of the chest. "Where's Byron?" I asked, nodding at the empty pod.

"Doing a job," he said in a deadpan voice, saying the very thing I had expected, which made me smile. It was something I asked every time, along with asking how long I had been asleep. I liked to keep track of the others, see if any of them had been killed while I was under. I got some self-satisfaction in getting that piece of knowledge, for if any had, it was one more that I had outlasted. It meant that I was better, that I was smart enough to not get caught and eliminated.

"One-thousand-five-hundred of us have come off the assembly line from the first 33D down to me," I started. "Not including the ones that came after."

"…And three-hundred of them stayed in Japan while the rest were sent around the world," Mr. Anderson continued, playing along with me.

"The last time I awoke, you said two-hundred and seventy-one of them were remaining. So how many were lost between then and now?"

"Four."

"Heh. Appropriate, that. Four, huh? So that's four more I've beaten."

"Isn't it enough that in your one-and-a-half year lifespan, you've already gone on four missions?" he pointed out. "That's quite a bit. You've accomplished a lot."

"A pity I can't remember any of it, though. Oh well. The fact I'm awake now means that I'm getting recruited for number five, then, right?"

"Right you are. Anyway, why do you ask every time you wake up how many are left? Do you really want to be the only one remaining? It's a good thing that so few have been discovered, you know. It means Genom has hit pay dirt in the Boomer-for-hire market. If too many got caught the higher-ups would likely scrap the remaining ones and start over. I'm sure you don't want that to happen."

"They wouldn't do that," I commented casually, so much that it took Mr. Anderson aback.

"What makes you think not?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Each 33D costs two-hundred-million yen to manufacture, and that's just for the base model. Expensive enough that they put us into that cold sleep between each mission because we're too pricey to just let run around with nothing to do. Now, after putting that much into each one, you really think the higher-ups would just go ahead and scrap us? Don't you call that pissing your money away?"

"Genom can more than afford to do that," he sighed. "They did it with the S line, after all. What a disaster those models turned out to be."

My systems detected a rise in his blood pressure. For whatever reason, he was getting stressed out. "You're working too hard, Mr. Anderson," I observed, sitting in his lap, draping an arm around his neck. "Why don't you take a break and get yourself some tea?"

"I think I'll do that," he said with a nod. "Earl grey's your usual, right?"

"Good memory," I said, smiling.

"You know you need to get out of my lap so I can get it, right?"

"I know." I got off, smirking as I could see I had flustered him. I seemed to have that effect on him. But I wasn't built with the body of a full-grown woman. Every time I looked down at myself, I saw only small lumps for breasts, and little in the way of shapely hips. No, I was built with the body of a fourteen-year-old, never to grow up, never to develop those breasts.

But that didn't matter. What I wanted right now was that cup of earl grey.

A few minutes later Mr. Anderson returned, handing me a cup as he sipped from his own. "You know," he said, sitting back down in his chair, "there is something special about the job you're getting recruited for this time."

"What's so special about it?" I inquired, sipping slowly.

"I don't know the specifics, not yet. You'll get those once I sit you down in the Chair. All I know is that Mr. Quincy himself picked you out for it."

"Mr. Quincy? All right, you definitely have my attention now. Why would he himself pick me for this specific job?"

"Maybe the fact you've survived four missions and lived to tell about it. Or not," he quipped, laughing at his own joke.

"Well, I doubt it's for my looks," I drawled, though depending on the mission, my looks were certainly an advantage. No one would ever think someone who looked like a teenage girl to be someone to be suspicious of.

"I'm only guessing. But he'll be down in a couple hours to say hello personally, so once you finish that tea I'll get you dressed and looking proper. No one ever has an appointment with Mr. Quincy dressed like that."

"Oh, I only dress like this for you," I teased.

Mr. Anderson chuckled, eyeing me leeringly as I finished my tea. "I am a lucky man, aren't I? It's too bad you're not an S-type. At least then I wouldn't be breaking any laws doing what I want to do."

"If you value your life, you won't even try to pretend I am."

He laughed. "I know, you're not one to mess around with. I know the stories. Well, shall we get you dressed then?"

* * *

It was a moot point for me to get dressed in a business-like outfit. With the body I was built with, it would've looked like I was playing dress-up, so I went with some more casual clothes. I put on a dark green T-shirt, denim jeans, and a pair of steel-toed boots that I liked to wear every time I was about to get put in the Chair. For whatever reason I felt like they helped prepare me for what was to come, even if at the end of it all it would be wiped from my memory anyway.

Mr. Anderson thought my clothes were a bit too casual, considering I was going to be meeting with Mr. Quincy shortly, but once I pointed out the bit about looking like I would be playing dress-up, he quieted down and decided to let me do what I liked.

"Are you ready?" he asked me as I adjusted my belt.

"Yeah. Let's get going," I said.

He led me out of the room and down the hallway before we came to an elevator. Stepping in, I realized it wasn't one of the regular indoor ones. It was a glass-encased one, on the outside of the Tower, so that going up you could see the great expanse of MegaTokyo. After putting in a security code ensuring he had authority to use this particular elevator, Mr. Anderson punched the button for the one-hundredth floor and in no time at all, we were heading up.

"Isn't it a lovely view?" he remarked, taking in the scenery. "It's even better at night, with all the buildings and streets lit up. Just beautiful. And the people, they look like ants below us. No, dots, just little dots. I'm sure there was a movie where that was discussed…"

"You didn't need to escort me," I said.

"Ah, but you don't know the code for this elevator. And besides, Mr. Quincy insisted I escort you. Said it was rude to let a lady wander around this place by herself."

"A lady…ha. He's too kind."

Too kind…but he hadn't gotten to his current position by being kind. Even I knew that. A true leader had to be charming and iron-fisted, and to borrow a turn of phrase, keep his friends close and his enemies closer. From what I could remember I had never met him in person, but I knew enough about him that he was to be treated with the highest respect. Enough that a person could be dead or disappeared within two hours of him giving the order. And to think, that of all the 33Ds currently in cold sleep and not engaged in other missions, that he chose me above the rest…I would say that I was almost flattered. He was smart enough that I was sure he hadn't just randomly chosen me from a list of names. He had to have done his homework, known that I had done good work.

I smirked to myself. This must've been a special mission he had, if he had chosen me.

Once the elevator reached its destination, we stepped off the elevator, where two very tall men in dark suits escorted us down the hall. My systems detected that they were both 55Cs in disguise. Mr. Anderson looked uncomfortable; he seemed to know this as well, and took in a large gulp of air as we approached a large pair of oak doors. Maybe he was nervous because he was surrounded by beings he knew could kill him in a heartbeat. I wouldn't put it past him, but truly, he had no reason to be afraid. After all, if he had the code to the private elevator for this particular floor, then Mr. Quincy must've trusted him a lot.

But obviously he knew better than to be at ease simply because of that.

"Come in, Mr. Anderson," a voice bellowed as the two disguised Boomers opened the doors, shutting them behind us as we entered the office. A tall, well-groomed man was sitting at a desk which sat in front of what was probably the largest window I had ever seen. His white hair was slicked back, much like Mr. Anderson's, and he had unusually dark skin. Whether it was from taking many vacations or a natural color, I couldn't guess. He was obviously a man who took pride in his work.

"I have brought you Emi, as requested, sir," Mr. Anderson said with a bow. I bowed as well.

Mr. Quincy stood up. He was much taller than he had looked on first appearance, just about as tall as the Boomers that stood guard at the doors. He walked over to us, lightly leaning on a cane for support, eyeing me up and down. "So this is Emi," he observed.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Anderson said again, looking as if he were about to break out into a cold sweat. If Mr. Quincy noticed this, he said nothing.

"She's small."

"Yes, sir. 148 centimeters to be exact, sir."

"I read the report, Anderson. I knew that." He smiled. "Four missions, did it say? Quite impressive. I trust that you ran a check on her after you woke her up?"

"Yes, sir. Everything checks out beautifully. She is ready to go."

"Good, good." He turned to Mr. Anderson. "You may step out for a moment, Anderson. I wish to speak with her in private."

He hesitated.

"Problem?"

"No, sir."

"It's rude to have eavesdroppers. I just want to get to know the one I've chosen for this. We'll just be a few minutes."

Mr. Anderson nodded and left, the two bodyguard Boomers opening the doors to let him out before shutting them again, leaving just them, Mr. Quincy and me in the room. He looked at me again, and nodded, seemingly in approval. "Four missions," he repeated. "That indicates you know what you're doing. If you'd made any mistakes you'd be dead. Very few of the 33Ds I looked at had more experience than you do." He sneered. "Damn Anderson. You don't think he treats you with kid gloves?"

"How he treats me isn't important, sir," I stated, "as long as he makes sure my systems are running smoothly. I can't do the promised job if anything is malfunctioning. He has run his checks and I have run mine, and everything is perfect."

"That's good." He smiled again. "You may look like a child, but you're not as delicate as you look. Anderson seems to forget that."

"If I may ask, sir, what is this mission you have selected me for?"

Mr. Quincy stopped smiling at that moment, running his hand over his forehead before replying. "There was an incident a little over two years ago, before you were manufactured, that involved the use of a Boomer with a Black Box."

"Black Box?"

"A device that had its use originated in the obsolete Killer Doll line. It links the Boomer to our particle-beam satellites. Anyhow, there was a summit here in Tokyo that had many of the world leaders come together to try to figure out a way to deal with the so-called 'Boomer problem.' Heh! 'Boomer problem,' indeed," he spat. "There is no Boomer problem. If any get 'out of hand,' as it were, the Knight Sabers deal with it. They're convenient enough for that." He frowned again. "There comes a time, though, that people outlive their usefulness. I had the feeling they would appear again, after nineteen long years…and with a new member. There's a time when certain people just need to learn not to meddle in others' affairs anymore. I had the U.S. ambassador hire them to be lookouts for this summit, so I could lead them to their deaths, let those who worship them know what will happen to those who oppose me." He grinned. "I sent two new-model Boomers after them, one with a Black Box, to take care of them."

"Excellent plan, sir," I said with a grin. "It takes care of the Knight Sabers as well as the leaders who opposed you."

"They lived, Emi. All five of those damned Sabers lived. And a year later they invaded the Tower in San Francisco, exposed that little plan to the world, and assassinated my comrade Katherine Madigan. The United Nations has done their own investigating, and now, you see what they want me to do? They are demanding that I hand over the OverMind Control System, to see if there was any way that those Boomers were directed to do what they did, as opposed to just going rogue."

"This system…would I be right in guessing that it controls the movements of Boomers?"

"You would be right. All I need is the model number for a certain Boomer that I want to test out, give it its orders, and there you have it. Havoc in the streets, and when I offer to buy the property of those whose homes and businesses were damaged by that Boomer, they cave. I find out how well the Boomer does, and I acquire more property for the company. It's a win-win situation. But if I handed over the OMS…" He tapped his cane on the floor. "Well, I just can't allow that to happen. That would make the U.N. the rulers of the world."

"What do you plan to do, sir?" I asked.

"This is where you come in, my dear."

* * *

Mr. Quincy, as much as it seemed like he liked to talk, was not a man who liked to waste words. Rather than repeat something that was only going to be downloaded into my brain anyway, we both exited the office, with him insisting to Mr. Anderson that he wanted to see the process of the mission being implanted himself. Mr. Anderson protested at first, but after a terse look from Mr. Quincy, he quickly relented and was quiet on the elevator trip down back to the floor we had come from.

I eyed him carefully. His blood pressure was up again, and he was sweating profusely, dabbing at his temple with a handkerchief. He wasn't normally like this. I could tell this was going to be a problem if he continued to act belligerent. Being in the presence of Mr. Quincy wasn't a good enough excuse.

"This way," he said in a low voice, guiding us out of the elevator and down the hallway, past the room where the other 33Ds were kept, to a simple room that, like most of the others, required a code to enter, but unlike the others, it didn't end there. Upon putting in the code, Mr. Anderson submitted a hand print as well as undergoing a retinal scan before the door opened. He flicked on the light, and I recognized the room instantly. There was a computer system along the far left wall, and aside from a chair at the computer console, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a chair that sat against the back wall. It was a regular chair, except for the straps on the arms, and a jack sticking out from the top of the back.

"How long does this take?" Mr. Quincy inquired.

"From the time I log into the system, only a few minutes," he said. "Take a seat, Emi dear."

I nodded and did so, plugging the jack into the back of my neck, at the third cervical vertebra. Mr. Anderson strapped my arms down, then sat down at the console and entered the password to get into the system.

"I have to strap them all down when I give them their mission," Mr. Anderson explained, "because the influx of information can be a bit of a shock to their systems."

"And you yourself know nothing of these missions," he stated, assuming it to be true.

"Correct, sir. All I know is the codename for the mission to be downloaded. I get told which 33D to take out of cold sleep, and the codename of the mission, and the rest is none of my business."

I smirked to myself at Mr. Anderson's expression. He was tucking in his lower lip, a slight twitch in his eye evident. It told me that there was more that he wasn't saying, but he didn't need to. His face made it loud and clear. It told me that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to access the mission details. That required a much higher level of access than he was capable of. Caregiver to 33Ds he may have been, but that didn't make him anyone special.

Indeed, this was going to be a problem.

"Here we are," Mr. Anderson said after a few minutes of typing in various codes and passwords. "Operation Oyakodon, sir?"

"That's the one," Mr. Quincy ascertained with a smirk. "Go ahead."

"Yes, sir. Comfortable, Emi?"

"Just do it," I said bluntly.

A few more taps of the keys and suddenly, I felt a surge of electricity shoot through me as images and information flashed in front of my eyes. Images of a metallic egg-shaped object. Details about an organization known as Adachi Synthetic Industries. In an instant, I knew everything that I needed to know about this mission.

"Relax your hands, Emi," I heard Mr. Anderson urge gently, and at the sound of his voice I became vaguely aware of my fingers being bent inward like claws, of the synthetic muscles in my arms tightening up. I slowly made them relax, still working through the surge of information that I had been granted with.

"Is that it?" Mr. Quincy inquired.

"That's it," Mr. Anderson said, unstrapping my arms, then having me lean forward to take the jack out of my neck.

"Stand up, Emi," he ordered. I did so. "Now, tell me what your mission is."

"My mission, Mr. Quincy, sir," I stated, clicking my boots together, "is to recover the OMS with the assistance of some men from ASI, to keep it out of the hands of the United Nations."

"And how is that going to be done?"

"The instructions, sir, are to intercept the van that will be delivering the device to the U.N. envoys, retrieve the OMS, and hold it for safekeeping until we receive further instructions from Genom proper."

"That is correct." He looked extremely pleased. "There's more than that, but you already know all that and I don't need to hear it again. Excellent, Emi." He turned to Mr. Anderson. "Ah, Anderson. It seems you were privy to all of that."

For a moment, Mr. Anderson looked panicked. "I-I wasn't listening to it, sir," he stammered. "I know you were just testing her to make sure everything was uploaded properly."

"That I was. But, there is still one more thing I need to do."

"What is that, sir?"

Mr. Quincy turned to me, and pointed the end of his cane at Mr. Anderson. "Emi. Kill this man."

Mr. Anderson looked at Mr. Quincy, bewildered, then looked at me, his face holding the expression of panic again. "W-wait. Kill me? Sir, you can't be serious."

I let a grin spread across my face. It was clear as day to me why he had given that order. "Right here, right now?" I asked.

"That's right," Mr. Quincy said.

I strode over to a very frightened Mr. Anderson, who had jumped up from his chair and was backing away from me. "Emi. Emi, l-l-listen to me, for Christ's sake," he stuttered. "I'm the only constant you've had. I'm the one who wakes you up every time, the one who…who gets you your cup of earl grey. I'm the only one who really cares about you! Please, think this through!"

"I've been thinking it through ever since you started sweating at the sight of Mr. Quincy," I said coldly. "He is the boss. You do what he says, when he says, without question, without protest. You were hesitating and protesting at every opportunity. Do you not trust him? Are you afraid of him? There's no reason to be as long as you keep your head down and do your job. Every lackey knows that. And as for what you just said, anyone can do that. Just because you're the one constant doesn't mean that I've developed some kind of feelings for you. Feelings are for the weak. And feelings can very easily get you killed."

"Emi, please! I love you! Don't do this!"

"You're wasting your feelings on an assassin Boomer. You've been extremely misguided, Mr. Anderson. You may feel that way for me, but I will waste no time in showing you what you mean to me."

I reached out and grabbed his throat, clenching my palm around his larynx, which at first bobbed up and down as he tried to swallow, but it quickly was trapped under my grip and stalled. Mr. Anderson let out a gasp, but as my grip tightened he could neither get in any air nor let any escape. I pushed him up against the wall and guided my grip up until his feet were barely touching the ground, with him banging on my arm and shoulders, trying to get me to let go. I grinned as my systems detected a steady decline in the amount of oxygen in his blood, but suffocation wasn't what I was after. It was merely part of the process.

I gave a hard squeeze, and immediately after came the sound of something being crunched. At the same time, I felt the bulge that was his larynx implode underneath my grip, and Mr. Anderson's eyes bulged open wide, followed by them glazing over as life left him. I relinquished my grip on him, and he dropped limply to the floor, his throat swelling up massively.

"As expected of a 33D," Mr. Quincy said, looking satisfied.

"You hadn't needed to give me the order, sir. I could tell he was going to be a problem before that."

"And that, my dear Emi, is why I chose you." He looked back at the dead man on the floor. "Let his colleagues come retrieve him. We have business to attend to. Isamu should be here in a short while. Let's not keep him waiting."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Several floors down from Mr. Quincy's office was a private dining room that he apparently used for business affairs. The room was almost as large as his office, with a long table trailing down the middle, with what I counted as a full three-dozen chairs situated around it, with a red gold-trimmed table runner as the sole decoration on the table. Three cooks, whom I quickly detected as A-Class Boomers, made several trips in and out of the room, setting the room with an extravagant feast. Chicken, ham, several different kinds of potatoes and salads and vegetables, a pitcher of water, several bottles of expensive-looking wine, and a pie set out for dessert. And this was just a late lunch.

"Do you wish me to stay outside while you talk with Isamu, sir?" I asked.

"No, you will sit with us," he said. "I want him to know whom I am entrusting this assignment to."

A few minutes after we had sat down, the doors opened, and in came in a middle-aged man, flanked by two 55Cs much like Mr. Quincy had had guarding his office. I narrowed my eyes, watching them closely, but they did nothing.

"Quincy!" he bellowed, laughing as the two men shook hands. "It's nice of you to invite me here!"

"Mr. Isamu. My pleasure to have you here. Sit down and let's have a talk."

Takeyuki Isamu, despite the fully Japanese name, didn't look Japanese in the slightest. He had a head of light blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, and a mustache that seemed to itch him constantly, as every few seconds his hand would reach up to scratch it. He wasn't obese, but still had a round face and something of a round stomach that stuck out underneath his suit. He was tall, but still only came to just above Mr. Quincy's shoulders.

Everyone sat down, and one of the cook Boomers took turns slicing up the meat and serving everyone what they wanted. Isamu wasted no time in filling up his plate to capacity, while Mr. Quincy started off with a Caesar salad with just the barest hint of oil.

"I take it that this is the 33D you're lending me?" Isamu asked, glancing at me as I took a sip of water.

"She is," Mr. Quincy affirmed. "This is Emi. Make sure your men refer to her like they would refer to a human being. It would be inconvenient if they were to treat her as some object. Aside from a full-out Combat Boomer, she is the most dangerous weapon at our disposal."

He chortled. "But she's so small."

"Are you questioning my choice, Isamu?"

"No sir." He eyed me up and down, taking a large gulp from his glass of wine. "It's just that this is the first time I have seen a 33D up close. She doesn't look like an assassin at all, but then again, that's the whole point. She's wonderfully constructed. My men may not like it though. They're expecting something that looks a little more…tough."

"She's plenty tough, and your men will take what I give them," Mr. Quincy stated firmly. "Time is running short, and I have no patience for those who are going to be trivial about looks."

"Absolutely not, sir." Isamu shoved a piece of ham into his mouth, chewing it over thoroughly before swallowing. Meanwhile, Mr. Quincy finished his salad and had one of the cook Boomers fill up his plate with slices of chicken, which had a little bit of gravy drizzled over them, some au gratin potatoes, and some sweet peas.

"They've been meddling for a long time, you know," Mr. Quincy said. "The United Nations. This thing that they're asking of me is just…preposterous."

"Why didn't you refuse to hand it over?" Isamu inquired, emptying his glass of wine, which one of the cook Boomers promptly refilled. I just sat and nibbled at my salad. "You're the most powerful man in the world. You must have at least some leverage over them."

"Things aren't as simple as you make them sound, Isamu," he explained. "Admit it. Even ASI's profits have suffered as a result of the order the U.N. gave out, banning manufacturing of any new models of Combat Boomers."

"They have. I'm down 20% this year because of it, but as a plus, orders for 55Cs are up the same amount. Alas, the new types we'd been developing would have brought in much more. Selling one of those would have brought in more than selling ten 55Cs."

"Except we would need to send some out on test runs first, of course."

"Of course. I was really looking forward to seeing how the Knight Sabers would handle them, if they could handle them." He chuckled. "Stupid women. They don't know their place."

"So what is this new model you were working on?"

Isamu handed Mr. Quincy a manila folder with blueprints and specs, which he opened and looked over. "The BU-79C, codename Quicksilver. Only three-fourths the weight of a 55C, largely because of the development of a new muscle fiber that is lighter and stronger than that used in the 55C, and one-and-a-half times faster in the air and on the ground. Preliminary testing against a 55C had the 79C decimate the 55C in forty-three seconds."

"Forty-three seconds? That's not as fast as I would like, Isamu."

"We're working on improving that time, sir. But ever since the U.N. restrictions came down…"

Mr. Quincy grinned. "It sounds very promising. I can promise you all the funding you need, if you get this job done for me. I'll lend you Emi here to help with the OMS job, and once you get it back to me, I can get you your funding, plus if I like what I see, I may even place a big enough order for them that your company won't have to worry about money for a long, long time."

"Your orders for 55Cs are already plenty generous, sir."

"You're making it sound like you can do without my offer." Mr. Quincy grinned.

"Oh, no, I greatly appreciate the offer. And I'm even more humbled that you are entrusting me with such an important job." He cleared his throat.

"This isn't me just sending you to find a kidnapped child, Isamu. The U.N. wants the OMS, and we're going to make it look like we'll be giving it to them. And naturally, this is where your men and Emi are going to come in."

"Yes, sir. We're going to make it disappear."

"It's not our fault if it disappears on its way to being delivered to them. We stood by our word," Mr. Quincy said with a facetious tone, grinning widely as he took a bite of chicken. "Genom always stands by its word."

"Indeed it does." Isamu shared the same grin. "Indeed it does."

I finished my salad, washing it down with another large sip of water. Isamu took that moment to look at me. "Do you really need food, or is it just for show?"

"My body requires sustenance as much as any human body does," I replied.

"In that case, why don't you go ahead and fill up? Lots of food here, and I don't want you getting lethargic on me during the mission."

"I prefer to eat light before the main part of my missions. I will have a little bit more, however." I snapped my fingers, and almost instantly one of the cook Boomers was at my side, offering me some chicken and potatoes, which I accepted.

"Well, that's fine, that's fine. I suppose you have a point there." He turned to Mr. Quincy. "Why lend me an assassin Boomer? This mission doesn't require killing of anyone specific."

"I trust your men, Isamu. But everyone knows that those who are most trustworthy are made, not born. I'm not going to spare anything in making sure that thing gets back to me. I'm sure you can understand that."

"Absolutely, sir."

"No more objections, then?"

"None, sir. You've been clear as crystal, sir."

"Good, good." He stood up. "You're dismissed. Make sure your men are at the southeastern parking garage of the Tower by six on the dot. Minutes count, Isamu. If they're late…"

"They won't be, sir. I assure you."

"Emi will do her job and do her job well. Make sure she gets back to me in one piece." He looked at me. "Emi."

"Yes, sir?"

"Listen to Isamu. Make sure you do as he says."

"Yes, sir!"

He nodded and took his leave, looking back over his shoulder at me to give me one final look. He motioned his head in Isamu's direction before disappearing through the doors, which the two disguised 55Cs closed quickly.

I knew what he was saying. He was telling me to watch Isamu. I'd already decided that on my own.

"Well, he made sure all this nice food was ready for us. It would be rude to let it go to waste, eh?" Isamu laughed before having one of the Boomers refill his plate. "Quincy is a generous, generous man, I tell you. I've only met him in person a handful of times, and I swear, even at his age, that look he shoots at people is enough to scare the bejesus out of anybody if you're not prepared for it. Now nice of him to trust me with the OMS."

"He must trust you a lot," I said, eating my chicken slowly.

"He doesn't trust anybody as far as he can throw them," he spat, emptying his wine glass again. "He wouldn't have gotten to where he is if he didn't trust anybody. He shouldn't be trusting me this much, but it's a good thing he is. He's gotta have somebody do this, after all."

"You know the details of the mission, I take it?"

"Of course I do." He sneered. "Except I'm going to alter his plans a little bit. Pompous bastard needs to be taken down a few notches, and I'm just the one to do it. And he's putting me in the position to do it! What an arrogant ass."

I sipped my water, playing it cool. "What do you want me to do once your men and I have secured the OMS?"

"There's a warehouse in Timex City you all can lay low at for a few days. I'll come by and get it, and you're going to help me figure out how the bloody thing works."

"What for?"

"The one with the OMS is the one who gets control of all the Boomers. If I have control of the Boomers, then there's no way Quincy can refuse what I want. He'll be the mouse cornered by the giant starving cat. He won't have a choice!"

"What do you want, then?"

"Power. Isn't that what everyone wants? Sure, I'm president of ASI, but it's just a fucking subsidiary. Small fries to Genom, even if we do provide essential parts for the C-Class Boomers. I'm president but I still have to bow down to the likes of him. Well, I'll show him. Once I have the OMS, he'll be forced to listen to me! I'll show him! I can sic Boomers on him, AND wipe out the Knight Sabers, something he's failed to do time and time again! I'll do it! And then he'll admit what a genius I am!"

I had to keep from rolling my eyes, but I nodded. "Very well. He said six o'clock, right? That gives us about two hours or so to get ready."

"You don't need to get ready. My men will have everything in place already when they pull up. I'll make sure my guys here will give you some proper weapons, though," he said, nodding towards his bodyguard 55Cs. "It has to look real, after all."

"Indeed."

After his third plate of food, Isamu finally decided he was finished, and after the table was cleared, we both left the dining room, with him patting his full stomach and laughing heartily, while I stayed by his side like Quincy had told me to do. This man was planning on overthrowing Genom. I was tempted to kill him now, to stop him in his tracks before he could even start, but first things first. I had to make sure the OMS was secured, and killing Isamu now would throw a wrench in everything Quincy had planned.

No. I would play the game for now. But once the OMS was in my hands it was over.

* * *

The next two hours were spent with Isamu making various phone calls on his cell, mostly to make final arrangements on various business deals. I pretended not to listen, but in truth I was paying attention to every word, and my hearing was excellent enough that I could even make out what the person on the other end of the line was saying. My first impressions told me that he wasn't merely talking in some elaborate code; he really was finalizing some deals, and none of them had anything to do with what was going on with the pending OMS mission. His tone was firm but reassuring at the same time, a complete one-eighty from the man who had gloated to me about his secret plans just a short time before. I had to digest this for a moment. Was his 'plan' from before really some sort of act, just to see how I would react? To see if I really would be willing to follow his every command? I couldn't be sure of anything, not yet. Something in the back of my mind told me it wasn't the first time I'd been tested out like this, but because my memory had been wiped of anything relating to previous missions, there was no way to confirm.

Whether it was an act or not, priority still lay with the OMS, with recovering it and making sure it would safely get back to Mr. Quincy's hands. If Isamu really was just playing with me, then I didn't need to worry. Assuming his henchmen did their part, this mission would go off without a hitch. If he wasn't, however, that just made one more person that I would have to get rid of. It didn't matter. Whatever it took to get the mission accomplished, that was what I would do. I'd succeeded four times before, and I was determined to make it five. No matter what.

At 5:55 PM, minus Isamu's bodyguards, we were both at the inside entrance of the southeastern parking garage of the Tower, just as the mission details specified. Five more minutes and a semi would be pulling up to take me away on my mission. A human might have been tingling with excitement and anticipation, and indeed, I was ready to get on the road and get the mission done. But there was no use in getting overexcited over it. Getting excited could only lead to carelessness, and I knew better than to let myself get excited. It was a mission, not a game. It was true that trying to outlast as many of my brethren as possible was something of a game to me, a contest, but in this instance, I realized that it was unlikely all of the ones who had fallen before me had truly screwed up. Some of them may have, but it was entirely possible that some of them had died for their mission, given their lives to ensure their missions were complete. If that were to be the instance here, then I would have no hesitation in giving my life, the game of 'last one standing' be damned.

It was a last resort, though. Only give my life if there was no other way to complete the mission. No use in throwing away my life for nothing. But it wouldn't come to that. Not if I could help it. No reason for the mission to fail if everyone did their part.

"There," Isamu said, nodding at a large semi in the distance that had just cleared the security gate. It was a fairly nondescript and generic semi, with no logos or anything on the sides or front, which was good. Easier to slip away in a vehicle no one could remember.

The semi pulled up in front of us, and a side door opened to reveal a large man with black hair and a beard. Upon spotting him, my internal files immediately ran a scan, and came up with a match instantly, bringing up his name and personal information. This man was the leader of the henchmen Isamu had chosen, going by the name of Bruce Waterly, aged 41, employed by ASI since 2042. Unmarried.

"Right on time," Isamu said. "This is Emi. She'll be helping you guys out tonight. Don't discount her on looks alone."

Bruce chuckled. "I was just about to say, she looks like a brat. Oh well. Get in."

I nodded and climbed into the carriage of the semi, getting just a glance at the interior before another man came up to me, short brown hair with a widow's peak adorning his head. He was larger than Bruce, with a muscular build not unlike those of Isamu's bodyguards. He, however, was human, and my scans told me this man was Bob Nakamura, aged 38, employed by ASI since 2050. Married with one son, currently separated. "Small for a supposed assassin," he murmured, "but I don't care. Long as we get 'er done, right?"

"Right," I concurred.

Outside the semi I could see Isamu's bodyguards coming up behind him, each holding two assault rifles and a case of ammo. My scans identified three of them as HK G11s, and one of them as a Rheinmetall MG3. Part of me questioned the need for a weapon as large as the MG3 – a six-foot-tall man could carry it around easily, to be true – but for the heist itself, it would be too cumbersome. The G11s were much better suited for that. Still, I didn't say anything. There was that saying, after all, about it being better to have something and not need it than to need it and not have it. Had to prepare for worst-case scenarios, after all. If it came down to it, all I'd have to do is fuse with it slightly and I would instantly know how to work it.

Bob and Bruce hauled in the weapons and set them down, followed by the ammo. "Anything else, boss?" Bruce asked while Bob looked over the weapons to make sure they were in good working order.

"No. You have your orders. Get going. Every second counts, as you know. Quincy's counting on us not to fuck it up."

"We won't."

"Good. Now go." Isamu slammed the door shut, and the driver of the semi instantly pulled away. In moments, we were exiting the parking garage and were on our way.

"Do I see a KID back there?!" the driver exclaimed, turning back for an instant to look at me in disbelief. He was not a sight to behold. His nose was thin and his chin pointy, like a rodent's. My scans identified him as Charlie Woods, aged 39, employed by ASI since 2052. Unmarried, and little wonder. Just on first sight I decided I didn't like him, but for the sake of the mission, I would have to bear it.

"Nezumi, she ain't a kid," Bob chided, Nezumi apparently being Charlie's nickname, and an appropriate nickname it was.

"I hear it all the time," I said. "Usually a fatal mistake." Bob laughed.

"See, Nez? She's gonna kill ya if you call 'er that again!"

"Ah, shaddap. I was told we were getting a killing machine!"

"And she's it," Bruce growled. "Shut the fuck up and drive. Save the ass-grabbing for when we get back to the warehouse. Right now we got a job to do." He picked up the G11s and started loading them one at a time, while Bob picked up a black outfit and mask and tossed it at me.

"We're dressing up today. That's the smallest one we've got, and if it's too big, we'll pin it back or somethin'."

"Fine." I stripped down to my underwear, and for a moment I felt the semi swerve, and Bruce took a moment to swear at Nezumi for trying to look at me. I frowned to myself and pulled on the outfit. I only had to bear with him for a little while, but I would make sure to keep an extra eye on him. As the driver, he was the most important person in this vehicle, and I had to make sure he did at least do that part to the best of his ability.

"Eyes front," I snapped, slipping my arms through the sleeves and pulling the fabric over my shoulders to finish. "I have nothing you want to look at anyway. Bob, Bruce. Your turn."

They both stripped down to their undershirts and boxers and got dressed in their own black outfits, and it was then I noticed that Nezumi was already dressed in his, which made sense. With the time crunch we were on, there would've been no time to switch drivers while he changed. At least somebody in this group had been thinking ahead.

"How long to the rendezvous point?" Bob yelled at Nezumi.

"Half an hour," the rat-faced man shouted back.

"Twenty-eight minutes if traffic holds up," I said, going by my scanners, examining one of the G11s. It was lighter than it looked, and every bit as lethal as it looked.

"Good," Bob said, nodding. He looked at me. "I'm eager to see what you can do."

"If everything goes as planned, you won't. Sorry."

He chuckled. "Touché. I think I like you."

I smirked.

The ride was smooth and uneventful. Nezumi attempted to turn on the radio, but Bruce snapped at him to leave it off in case Isamu were to contact us with last-minute instructions or a change in plan. He grumbled, but obeyed. I, in the meantime, continued to examine my G11, flicking the safety on and off several times with my thumb to make sure it worked properly. My left hand supported the barrel, fusing with it ever so slightly, the gun latched to my hand as the fusion completed itself. That done, I did a visual scan of the weapon, determining its specs. The gun had several different firing modes. In semi-automatic, one squeeze of the trigger would fire one bullet. There was also another setting in which it was capable of three-round bursts, but if switched to full-auto I could potentially fire off as many as 600 rounds per minute. Because of the way the gun chambered the bullets during the three-bound bursts, there would be no recoil – they were fed and fired as soon as the chamber was ready, as opposed to full-auto mode, when the housing moved back and forth between each shot – until after the last bullet was fired, so there was no worry about climbing. In addition, it was accurate up to 300 meters, and even loaded with one magazine and two extras stored on top, the gun still only weighed in at just under five kilograms. The bullets were light, but traveled fast, roughly 950 meters per second. Not to mention they were hollow-points. I smirked to myself again. This was the perfect weapon. Light, capable, and if someone were to get in the path of fire, it was ensured that they wouldn't have an open casket at their funeral.

Now wouldn't that be a pity?

I unfused from the gun and grabbed my mask, pulling it over my head, ensuring that my ponytail was tucked in. I looked over at Bob, who had already done the same thing and was now cocking the MG3 and flicking the safety on. "This ought to be interesting," I remarked.

"Yep," he agreed. "Man, if I could tell you the stories my dad told me about fighting in the Polar War. He had a G11, just like these ones we've got, and it was his baby. Kept sayin' over and over that it was more reliable than any of his comrades."

"Well, I'm relying on all of you," I said. "I'm planning on relying on you guys rather than on this gun, because it alone won't be getting this job done. Manpower and firepower don't equate."

"Spotted it," Nezumi called out. "It's three cars ahead of us."

Bruce walked up behind him and looked over Nezumi's shoulder. "That semi there?"

"Yep. The license plate number matches what we've got on file."

"Good. Track it. It should be pulling over in a couple blocks."

"Right."

He stormed back to Bob and me and pulled on his mask. "Few more minutes, people. The moment they slow down to pull over I'm gonna blow the back tires. That'll be our chance. Don't worry about manhandling them, because they're expecting us, so they know what to do." I could see him grinning underneath his mask. "After all, it's gotta look real."

Several tense minutes passed, with no one saying a word. Nezumi rounded several corners, continuing to track the other semi, while everyone else checked their weapons one more time. I was sure by this point all the G11s had been checked out at least five times each, but it never hurt to make sure.

"We are go," Nezumi spat, and at that moment Bruce opened the side door and gave several squeezes of the trigger. Several loud popping noises followed as I heard the back tires of the semi in front of us blow out.

"Thirty seconds, GO!" Bruce yelled, jumping out into the street, and in an instant Bob and I had our guns in hand and were right behind him. A moment later, so was Nezumi, having slipped on his mask after he jumped out from behind the steering wheel. He was unarmed, however, as we had only been given three G11s, but that didn't matter, for he had the most important job of all.

"Shoot it!!"

Bob fired off shots at the lock sealing the back of the semi, and once that was done Bruce threw the doors open and all four of us stormed in, surprising the men who were sitting in the back. I looked around at all of them. They looked like run-of-the-mill security guards, except they were unarmed and unarmored. The one on the right was sitting on a bench next to a large metal case. I motioned towards the case, and Nezumi grabbed it and ran, while the remaining three of us stood there with our weapons pointed at them.

"Thank you for cooperating, gentlemen," Bruce said menacingly.

"Guys, please…put the guns down," one of them pleaded. "You got what you wanted." My systems detected his heart rate at 130. He was genuinely scared, even though everything, all of this, was preplanned. They also detected a security camera up in the corner of the carriage. I aimed my gun, turned off the safety, and fired, thousands of the resulting pieces of metal flying everywhere as the bullets made contact. The men all ducked at the sound.

"A camera. Heh. How annoying," Bob grumbled. "Good job."

I nodded.

"Everybody turn around," I ordered. "Don't look at us. We're going to be leaving now. Don't turn around until we're gone."

They got up and turned around as I requested. "Put your hands behind your head. All of you." Slowly, they obeyed, until all of them had their backs to us. "Good, good."

I raised my weapon, as did Bruce and Bob. I gave a small wave of my free hand as the signal, and once I did so, all of us aimed and fired, the volleys drowning out the sound of the men's heads popping as the bullets slammed into them. Blood and pieces of flesh and bone filled the air, making lovely designs on the wall as the men, or what was left of them below the shoulders, crumpled to the ground.

Without a word, Bob and I took off running at full speed back to the semi, with more shots ringing out behind us as Bruce apparently took care of the driver. In seconds, all of us were back in the semi, and Nezumi tore off his mask and shifted into gear. In less than a minute, we had rounded the corner and were now heading towards the next point, which was to be the warehouse in Timex City.

"You really are an assassin," Bob remarked, pulling off his mask, his face sparkling with perspiration. "That was awesome."

I pulled off my own mask. "Save your praise. This isn't over yet. We still have to get down to Timex City. We can celebrate then, and not a moment sooner."

"Make sure the thing's in there," Bruce said, nodding at the metal case that was on the floor. Bob opened it, looked inside, then closed it, nodding confirmation.

"Looks like a metal egg," he observed. "Whatever. Long as we get paid, I don't care what they ask us to do." He looked at me, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Hey. I bet if we paid off that Old Man enough, we could keep you and use you for other missions like this. It'd be fun."

"I doubt it," I said. "Once this mission is over, so is this relationship. And besides, I doubt this is something you people do on a regular basis, and my kind is not meant for idle work. After this, you will move on, and so will I." I stopped and corrected him. "And by 'Old Man,' I'm assuming you're referring to Mr. Quincy. Don't call him by such a derogatory term. He commands much higher respect than that."

He chuckled. "Yes, ma'am."

"Fucking hell," Nezumi suddenly spat. "Bruce! We got cops behind us."

As if on cue, suddenly a voice came over a loudspeaker. "This is the police! Pull your vehicle over! Repeat! Pull your vehicle over, and come out with your hands behind your head!"

"What the hell?!" Bruce growled. "Somebody saw us, huh? Well, we can take care of that. Nez, get us on the highway. I'm gonna show 'em a thing or two about who they're messing with."

"Alright!" Nez cheered.

I felt the semi speed up, and soon enough we were on the highway. Looking in the rearview mirror above Nezumi, I could see at least four police cars chasing us, with sirens blaring. I frowned to myself. Surely I would have noticed if somebody else had spotted what was going on. I had been careless. But everyone else looked ready to take care of it. Bob got the MG3 positioned and ready to go, and on Bruce's signal, I stood against the wall by the case while he unlatched and threw open the back doors. Bob unlocked the safety and started spraying gunfire at the pursuing police cruisers.

Dakkadakkadakkadakka. That was the sound it made, and it was deafening, even more so than the air rushing into the carriage from the open back. The leading cruiser was quickly decimated by the gunfire, and it spun and collided with the guard rail, one of the others behind it crashing into it as it couldn't avoid it in time. The other two were still in hot pursuit, and in moments several others joined them, apparently having been called in for backup. Bruce turned his G11 to full-auto mode and squeezed the trigger, laying gunfire down at the tires of the cruisers while Bob aimed for the drivers themselves.

"What're you standing there for?!" Nezumi snapped. "You can absorb the thing, right?"

"Of course I can!" I snapped right back, the gunfire truly deafening, even to me.

"So DO it!!"

I examined the situation. In the unlikely scenario that we were to get caught, there would be a scandal, to say the least, if anyone had known what we had 'stolen'. Under these circumstances, my systems determined that there was a 97% estimated probability of mission failure if we were caught and I did not absorb the OMS into my body. I didn't like using my fusion abilities; they had a tendency to tax my systems if used for an extended period of time. If we were caught and I did absorb it, the failure rate went down to an estimated 50%, which was still an unacceptable rate. The only acceptable rate to me was zero. The only sure way to make zero happen was to not get caught and to absorb it. I could always unfuse with it once we got to the warehouse in Timex City. It was only temporary, and the only sure way to keep it safe.

I flipped open the case. As Bob had said, it was an egg-shaped metal object, and smaller than I imagined, given the size of the case; it was roughly forty centimeters long and six kilograms. An object of this size I could absorb in no time. I slipped the black outfit off my shoulders and slipped my arms out of the sleeves, pulling it down until my stomach was exposed. I grabbed the OMS and pressed it against my stomach, activating my body's Fusion Mode. Tendrils stretched out from my stomach, latching onto the OMS, pulling it slowly into the opening that my stomach was making.

The dakkadakkadakka noise was still reverberating in the background, along with Bob and Bruce's yelling. The police were still on their tails. I had to make this go faster.

I sped up the process, pushing the OMS further in with my hands as it was slowly sucked into my stomach cavity. I could feel my insides churning as they rearranged themselves to make room for this foreign body, and suddenly I was feeling very nauseous. This was not a normal feeling. My insides lurched again, grabbing onto the OMS hungrily, and I let out a scream in pain as they latched on and surrounded the OMS, pulling it all the way into my body. I crumbled to the ground, holding my stomach in agony as the hole began to close. It was like the OMS were absorbing me instead of the other way around. It felt like it was trying to take me over, like my body was going to lose itself to this…thing.

"GOT 'EM!!!" I heard Bob cheer, followed by a whoop of victory from Bruce.

"Yes!! We're safe!! Nez, get us off the highway now. We're okay."

"Roger that!" Nezumi hollered, sounding very satisfied with himself. "Guess that MG3 came in handy after all!"

"Well, no shit."

I got up on my knees, forcefully and very suddenly vomiting on the floor as the OMS finally took hold inside my body. I was sure I'd never felt pain like this before. It was overwhelming. I wasn't the cursing type but even I was about ready to let loose a stream of vulgar words and F-bombs that would've made the men around me blush with embarrassment.

"You ok?" Bob asked me.

"Fine," I rasped. "We gotta…get to the warehouse. How much longer?"

"It'll be a while. We gotta make sure nobody else is on our ass, so we're gonna drive through the city for a little bit."

"Do what you need to."

Bob cleaned up the vomit while I sat up and leaned against the wall, the hole in my stomach now closed, no outward signs showing of what I had just done. I let out a breath. The pain was ebbing, but my mind was still racing. Why did it hurt so much to absorb the OMS? That had never happened to me before; I was sure of it. Had I done something wrong? No…I couldn't have. I'd been around long enough to know the flaws of each of my abilities. My systems would have alerted me if something were going wrong. They would have suggested I abort the fusion. But they had done no such thing.

"Well, at least we can say we've had an eventful evening," Nezumi chuckled.

"This isn't the kind of eventful meeting I had in mind," Bruce mumbled. "Better let the boss know we're gonna be a little late."

"What do I tell him, that we almost got our heads blown the fuck off?"

"Pretty much, yeah. But the OMS is intact. Emi's got it in her gut now, so no worries about losing it."

"How're we gonna figure out how it works if it's in her stomach?" Bob inquired, which put me on alert. That was what Isamu had said several hours earlier, during lunch. He wanted me to help him figure out how the OMS worked… Was this part of the test? Or was it real?

"She'll just pop it out of her stomach when we get back to the warehouse. It'll be fine. They don't fuse with stuff forever. I saw her do it with the G11 just a little bit ago."

I gritted my teeth. Something still didn't feel right. I ran the fusion process in reverse, expecting the hole in my stomach to open up again so I could get rid of the OMS. Instead, a jolt of electricity shot through me, making me grunt in pain, along with a warning from my system.

"NOT POSSIBLE AT THIS TIME."

Not possible?

I felt a bead of sweat run down the side of my face. This was a problem. A major problem. I thought I had foreseen every possible scenario for this evening. I knew fusing with the OMS would be a possibility to keep it safe. But the possibility that I wouldn't be able to unfuse with it… Even I hadn't seen that coming. For now, at least, I couldn't do anything about it. It would just have to stay put. I swore to figure it out later, once we were at the warehouse.

"How big of a cut do ya think he'll give us once he's got the thing figured out?" Nezumi asked. "We DID almost get killed grabbin' this piece of shit for him."

"I'm not thinking that far ahead yet. I'm sure he'll compensate the hell out of us for our trouble. Don't worry about that. Isamu is a generous man."

I frowned to myself again. This wasn't a test. These men were in on it too. They knew exactly what Isamu was going for. They knew he wasn't just going to 'hold it' for Mr. Quincy. They really were planning to steal it from him. And thanks to me, they were halfway there.

It was settled. This mission as it stood would end right now. I would shoot these men, change back into my regular clothes, and make my way back to Genom Tower on my own. It was the only choice I had now, now that everything had been made clear to me.

These men, useful as they had been, had to die. Right now.

"Hey, someone's feeling better," Bob cracked as I wobbled to my feet, G11 in hand.

"Yes…thank you," I said, flicking the safety on and off with my thumb. "I'm just fine now. So I guess you did get to see what I can do, after all. There's still one more thing, though—"

I didn't get to finish. Bruce had snuck up behind me, and before I knew what was happening, I felt a large jolt against the back of my neck.

"Time to go…"

I let out a scream, and then everything went black.

* * *

Even as I came to, I could feel my head swimming. I moaned and forced my eyes open, putting a hand to my head, wincing as the vehicle I was apparently in hit a bump.

"Watch it, dammit!" a man snapped at the driver.

Another man, one with brown hair and a widow's peak, looked down at me, noticing I was awake. "Ah, Emi, you're awake. 'Bout time," he said.

Emi…the name didn't sound familiar. And this man didn't look familiar to me at all either. I gasped, trying to think. My mind was a total blank! I tried to recall, what was my name? Why was I with these men? Nothing came to me.

"Is that my name?" I asked, slowly sitting up, looking down and realizing I was clad in an undershirt and boxers that couldn't possibly be mine; they were far too big, and the shirt was big enough that I was practically exposing my breasts to the man in front of me.

The man who'd yelled at the driver, one with black hair and a black beard to match, grunted. "Damn. Guess I got rid of too much," he mumbled. "Hell with it."

What was he talking about? Had he done something to me?

I didn't have time to ask. He yelled at the driver of the semi to stop, and he nodded at the brown-haired man next to me, who got up and opened a side door. Dragging me to my feet, the two men guided me to the door. I tried to dig my heels in, but they were far too strong. My heels merely dragged along the metal floor.

"Wait, what're you doing?" I pleaded.

"Get out of here, brat. Go on."

I found myself shoved out of the semi, stumbling and landing on the asphalt of the street on my hands and knees, tires squealing behind me as the semi pulled away in a hurry, leaving me alone. I was too much in shock to move. What on earth was going on? Why were they in such a hurry to get rid of me? Had I done something wrong? I had barely woken up, and suddenly I was alone on the streets of an unknown city, with a group of teenagers passing by on a nearby sidewalk, paying me little heed.

I stood up, not even brushing away the dirt and gravel that I could feel digging into my knees and the palms of my hands. What was I supposed to do? Everything was confusing me all of a sudden. Those men…I had apparently been with them long enough for them to know what I had to assume was my name. Had they kidnapped me? Done unspeakable things to me? I could at least rule the latter out – the only thing that hurt was my stomach, and even that was only a dull ache, like I'd been punched, though of course I couldn't remember if I had been.

I was about ready to cry in frustration, when suddenly I heard a bolt of thunder crash down above me. I jumped and hugged myself as rain started to pour down. Looking around, I saw an alley I could duck into for cover, and I did so, sprinting over to it as fast as I could, ducking behind a beat-up trash can. Despite appearances, the overhang in the alley didn't provide much protection from the rain, and so in a matter of moments I found myself drenched. Despite the warm air just moments ago, the rain itself was freezing, which provided an unwelcome contrast and left me shivering, rubbing my arms up and down to keep warm.

People walking by me had opened up their umbrellas, chatting without a care in the world, none of them noticing this girl hiding in the alley from the rain, no one even taking a second glance even if they had. Surely this wasn't a common sight though, a girl on the street in what amounted to pajamas. I sniffled. I could ask one of them for help. Maybe someone would know who I was, recognize me somehow.

_Whatever I did, whatever sin I committed. I'm sorry. Just, please…help me. I can't be stuck out here all alone._

I wiped away my tears, deciding to wait out the rain. Once it stopped raining, I would venture out and ask somebody to help me.

I heard more footsteps by me, then suddenly they stopped, and drew closer to me again. I looked up, blinking in confusion as I saw a brunette-haired girl looking down at me curiously with bright red eyes, her hair tied back in a tight braid. She was wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, with a striped shirt underneath. On her left leg she wore a blue sleeve with an open patella.

"Maybe running away in your pajamas wasn't a good idea," she quipped, grinning. I just pulled my knees closer and shivered. It hadn't exactly been my idea.

She crouched down. "Do you understand me? Do you speak Japanese?" I nodded. "Good. So what're you doing out here? It's cold without a jacket or shoes?"

Would she believe me if I told her? I decided to take a chance. "They told me to get lost," I mumbled.

"Who did?" she asked.

"The men in the truck. They pushed me out and told me to get lost."

The girl frowned. "Were you kidnapped?"

"I don't know," I said, trying not to cry in frustration again. "I don't remember anything, only waking up in the truck and then the men pushing me out into the street."

"Do you remember your name?"

"One man called me Emi." I didn't know if that was my real name, but it was the only thing I had right now.

"Ok, Emi, I was just getting something to eat. Would you like anything?" I nodded. "Ok. I'll go get something, and then I'll take you to my place so you can get dried off. How long have you been out here?"

"Not long. I was pushed out just before it started raining."

"Good. I'll be back, ok? Just sit tight." She disappeared in an instant, running down the street. I sighed and held my knees again. I hoped she wasn't just playing with me. It certainly would've been nice to get something to eat. I hadn't even realized I was hungry until she'd said something.

True to her word, she reappeared a few minutes later, holding two plastic bags. "Here," she said, holding one out to me. I took it gingerly from her, like it was going to vanish into thin air if I took it too fast. "This is yours. I'm gonna take you to my place now, ok? Just follow me."

I hugged it to myself, relishing its warmth. "This is mine?"

"Yes, that's what I said. Now come on. I bet you're starving."

She handed me her jacket, and although I protested at first, she insisted, and so I slipped it on, still holding my food close as we both walked down the street towards her residence. I was quick to notice she had a slight limp, but it didn't seem to bug her.

Once we reached an apartment building, we went upstairs and entered her apartment. It was a small apartment, with a small kitchen to my left, the living room we were currently standing in now, and a door along the far wall that looked to lead into a bedroom. She led me to the kitchen and took my bowl of food out of my bag and gave me some chopsticks, then left for a moment, returning with a towel, which she handed to me. I rubbed at my head with it while wielding the chopsticks with my free hand, scooping up the noodles and slurping them up. They were delicious.

"Once you're done eating, go take a shower," she suggested. "At least that water is hot. And I'll give you some of my clothes for now. They might be too big, but we can go shopping tomorrow and I'll get you some that fit." Suddenly it looked like she hit upon an idea. "On second thought, Nene's about your size. We can go to her place and borrow some of her clothes."

"Who's Nene?" I asked.

"My aunt. Well, not really my aunt, she's a friend of my mom's. And maybe she can help me figure out what to do with you?"

"What to do with me?" I gulped.

"Yeah. Somebody must've reported you missing. And you obviously have amnesia, so you can't tell me where you came from. But right now I guess we should just get you cleaned up, warmed up, and get some sleep before we do any of that."

"What's your name?" I asked, realizing that I still didn't know what to call her. "You didn't tell me your name."

"Oh, I guess I didn't, did I? I'm Yumeko."

"I'm Emi."

"You told me that already," she pointed out with a laugh.

"Are you going to tell me to get lost too?"

"No. I'm going to help you find your home. Don't worry."

I quickly finished my noodles, and Yumeko deposited the bowl in the trash can. Once she finished with her own food, she led me to the bathroom and showed me where the towels were kept, and told me to take my pick of pajamas from her dresser drawer once I was done.

"Why did you help me?" I asked, feeling guilty all of a sudden. I felt like I was somehow putting her out. "Everyone else just passed me by."

She gave me a reassuring smile. "I wanted to."

"That's it?"

"That's it. Go ahead and get in. You'll feel a lot better afterwards."

"Thank you."

She shut the door behind me, and after I figured out the knobs in the shower, I took off my oversized men's clothes and stepped in, squealing in delight as the hot water poured over me. So much better than the rain outside! This was heaven compared to that!

After I shampooed and conditioned my hair, I sat down in the stall, hugging my knees, deep in thought. This girl, who didn't look a whole lot older than I assumed I was, had taken me in for no other reason than to help me out. Maybe she felt sorry for this poor girl sitting in the rain in ill-fitting clothes, but I didn't care. I was just happy someone had taken notice of me. I didn't know what would have happened if she hadn't stopped. And she'd said she had a friend who could possibly help me out. I was elated.

Something still bothered me, however. The farthest back I could remember was waking up in the semi. Why was that? That man had mentioned doing something "too much," and it seemed to refer to me. What had he been talking about? Maybe Yumeko and her friend Nene could help me figure it out. It was frightening, not knowing who I was, or what I had done, or why I was with those men to begin with.

Yumeko had gone through the trouble to give me food and shelter when no one else did. I smiled and made a promise to myself. Since she said she would do everything she could for me, I swore that I would return the favor in kind. I would do what I could as well.

It was the least I could do for my new friend.

**END "Love Me Tonight – Emi"**


End file.
